Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is all set to immerse players in the medieval machinations of warring kings and lords all over again, when it comes out on 11th February 2025.

We’ve played a few hours of the game, experiencing its opening narrative twists, as well as leaping ahead to the big city of Kuttenberg and the broader historical RPG action – you can read all about that here – but we also got to sit down with Warhorse figurehead and PR Manager Tobias Stolz-Zwilling to talk about a game that’s been a whole console generation in the making.

TSA: It’s going to have been 7 years almost exactly between games, which is basically a full console generation which is a lot of time in terms of tech, gaming and people’s attitudes. As a developer, has your approach for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 changed compared to the original, beyond the studio simply getting so much bigger?

Tobias Stolz-Zwilling: Yes and no. No, it’s still very much the same kind of game, so we’re trying to stay true to Warhorse, stay true to KCD, and deliver what we believe is a true, authentic medieval experience, but then again, now with more people and the cushion of a successful KCD1, we can make things bigger – everyone always says it’s going to be bigger and better, but in our case we do have more people, we have the financial funding that can support the development, but we also have the technology and the skills now to bring stuff into the game that we couldn’t afford before.

For example, we and [Director] Daniel Vávra always wanted to have a city in the game, and in KCD1 they’re teasing and talking about how in Kuttenberg something is happening, but we simply couldn’t [go there], because we weren’t able to have more than a few people on screen, the task of building a huge medieval city was too big, and so in KCD1 we basically have a bunch of villages and one overblown village, which is Rattay. Compare Ratai to KCD2 and it’s like one street in Kuttenberg. Now we are confident to tackle bigger things and that is what I think has changed most.

TSA: You’ve almost already answered my next question, which is what ways KCD2 has changed from the original? The scope, of course, but are you sticking with the alchemy system, the style of combat and things like that?

Tobi: Yes, the scope is the easy answer, but pretty much every element from KCD1 is being tweaked, fine tuned and upgraded. Even the dice minigame will be deeper and there will be some badges you can earn.

I think the most prominent example is with the combat […] We said of KCD1 that combat was easy to learn but hard to master, and I think the hard to master we nailed, but the easy to learn, not so much. Many people liked it, but some struggled, so the idea now is to have different animators come to the studio so that they all feel different, but they ca also offer different playstyle. So if you want to play the intricate combat system, then you can take a sword and do all the combos and moves, but if you’re a character that doesn’t want to combat at all or want a more straightforward style, then there’s weapons like the mace where you pretty much just whack the opponent on the head!

Then in the UI there are less attacking zones, it’s a bit more straightforward, the combos are not so difficult, and so on. It’s also stayed true to each weapon historically and what it was used for – of course the crossbow was easier than a bow, that’s why they invented them, and of course a pole weapon is easier that fencing, that’s why they used them. The intent is for a more entertaining game that offers you this choice.

TSA: You mentioned hitting enemies on the head, and video game developers have got a rich tradition of exploding watermelons. Usually it’s for first person shooters, I think, but did you get through many watermelons during development?

Tobi: [laughs] I don’t want to spoil too much, but many watermelons were harmed!

TSA: It also feels like you’re taking a step forward in the storytelling and the cinematic stylings. Perhaps a lot of that is from experiencing the opening hours and getting people into the setting, but does that continue as the open world is exposed to you?

Tobi: Daniel Vávra is a huge cinematics fan, and one day wants to shoot a film himself, so of course you can see this in his games – you can also see this in Mafia and Mafia 2, his earlier products. He has this hand for dramatic scenes and sequences, and KCD 2 especially is not different.

In the beginning of the game, it’s a little bit more hands on and we bring you up to speed with the video sequences to introduce you to the game and the surroundings. This will be less through the rest of the game, however, I think we have 4, 5 or 6 hours of cinematics in the game, and they’re extremely powerful and important for us to deliver the story. We have a 100 hour game, after all, and it’s a story driven game first, and an action RPG and the fighting and so on, so therefore the cinematics are very important.

TSA: I like that you can really put Henry and Sir Hans together as two characters that have a lot of growing up to do in this game.

Tobi: And that’s what makes them so lovely! Hans Capon in the first game, if you check on Reddit and so on, most people are saying the same: “I hated this dude in the beginning, but then he became my most loved character!”

He had this interest arc in KCD where he became a friend to Henry, but still there’s the difference where he is a noble and Henry is a Squire, a bastard. This is still present, but KCD2 will focus strongly on the bromance between those two, as they face terrible situations through the game where they’re on the edge of surviving (maybe even further), and that’s a dramatic part that we have a big focus on.

Henry, in KCD1, pretty much solved everything by himself, but in KCD2 that will not be the case. He will find out very quickly that he needs friends and he needs other misfits to get things done.

TSA: I get the feeling that Hans would like Henry to still sort everything out for them! [laughs]

How important is that you kept Mutt in the game? Was that a day one addition to the plan?

Tobi: Yes, and you can finally pet him! That was a big thing and even our own guys said we have to have a pettable dog, and to go one further, we have a petable horse as well, which is great.

Some of the perks and stats we are taking over to KCD 2, like the dog for instance or Henry being able to read – it doesn’t make sense to make him learn to read all over again – however, things like combat and other intricate things, he has to rediscover.

I like to say it’s like he’s the champion of a Sunday league, but now he’s going to the Premier League, so he will suck at most things in comparison. However, he now knows how to play soccer, but now needs to step up the game to deal with armies, knights, lords, nobility and so on. It’s not like he forgot everything, it’s more like he needs to refine his skills.

TSA: He didn’t just take a mace to the head and forget stuff.

Tobi: Exactly.

TSA: There’s obviously still areas that you might still be able to improve and add in future, so you talked about not having jousting in the game, which I’m sure a lot of people would be nagging you to do. Is that the main thing that is still on the wish list?

Tobi: Honestly, I think everything that’s in the game and everything that’s not in the game is exactly as intended by Warhorse – this is how we do it, this is what we wanted to deliver, and we are looking forward to getting this out.

Jousting and these things are coming from fans that are very often used to Hollywood scenes, like A Knight’s Tale. Yes, jousting was a thing in the Middle Ages, but it definitely wasn’t as present as people might think…

TSA: Also, it was probably just for the rich folks.

Tobi: For the very rich folks. For the nobility mainly, and even then, when they were participating, it was a problem because you were actually hurting a nobleman!

But there will be tournaments: swordfighting tournaments, archery tournaments, horse tournaments and so on and so on. There will be cool stuff in there, but jousting would be a bit like a Quidditch game for Harry Potter. Of course everyone wanted Quidditch in there, but…

TSA: I mean, jousting you can understand, but Quidditch is impossible to figure out how to make into a workable game!

Tobi: Just catch the golden ball! [laughs]

TSA: Lastly, I was wondering about big picture for Kingdom Come. Obviously you will tell a story of its own in KCD2, but is there still another chapter in a grander saga? I’m not sure you’re allowed to say right now…

Tobi: I’m allowed to say anything! KCD1 ended with a cliffhanger, and KCD2 will end a story, but I don’t tell you which story. What the future brings, we don’t know yet.

In our history at Warhorse, we had two sink or swim situations. One was the Kickstarter, and the other was the release of KCD, because even then we weren’t sure if it would be a success or not. it’s not a sink or swim situation anymore, knocking on wood, but we have to wait and see how KCD2 performs. I am positive, I think the game is great and in very good shape already.

I can tell you already that Warhorse tries to aim to get bigger. We want more people, have bigger studios and again tackle bigger challenges.

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Our hands on time and chat with Tobi with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 came thanks to a press trip to Kutná Hora, the modern day Kuttenberg, with travel and accommodation provided by Warhorse and Plaion.

Supermassive Games have revealed the next game in The Dark Pictures Anthology and, as we found out quite a while ago, it’s called Directive 8020. This time we are off into space for some body horror, checkout the trailer.

I don’t think Supermassive would mind us saying that The Dark Pictures Anthology format had got a little stale after four games so it’s nice to see they are switching things up for this new release. “In a dramatic step forward for the series, the game features persistent real-time threats, all-new stealth gameplay mechanics, and enhanced interactive cinematics powered by Unreal Engine 5,” they say.

The game will feature Hollywood actor Lashana Lynch who you may have caught in Bob Marley: One Love or the superb The Woman King. Here’s more from Supermassive:

“Earth is dying and humanity is running out of time. 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 realize they are far from being alone.”

“Hunted by an alien organism capable of mimicking its prey, the crew of the Cassiopeia must outwit their pursuers to make it home alive. 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. In space, death takes many forms.

• Next-Gen Cinematic Survival Horror – Experience immersive cinematic storytelling and edge-of-your-seat horror on a deep space mission to save humanity.
• Real-Time Alien Threats – Evade a deadly alien threat that roams the dark corridors of the ship, intent on eradicating human life. Overcome your enemies using improvised weapons, lightning reflexes, and stealth.
• Trust No One – Encounter an alien lifeform that perfectly imitates its prey. Years of training and trust are lost among the crew when their enemy hides in plain sight. Who is human and who is not? Your choices are now more important than ever!”

Source: YouTube / Press release

Dying Light: The Beast is a new stand alone game that brings back Kyle Crane from the first Dying Light game and it’s DLC. Kyle was absent from Dying Light 2, probably because at the end of The Following players could experience two different endings and neither of them were particularly… healthy.

The game is set thirteen years since Kyle was last seen and finds him exploring the post-apocalyptic Castor Woods, a once-popular tourist destination. The area is populated with human factions as well as monsters including “the mysterious creature that’s turned the woods into its personal hunting grounds.”

As you might have gathered Kylie is no longer fully human. “Years of brutal experimentation took its toll, but the zombie DNA and yours are now intertwined so that you are able to unleash a beast-like power,” say Techland. “It flows through your veins. No one can take it from you. Use it. And you’ll discover it’s not just a curse.”

Voice actor Roger Craig Smith will be returning to the role of Kyle Crane. “Stepping back into Kyle Crane’s shoes feels like a reunion with an old friend,” Smith said. “And even though he’s gone through a terrible time, there’s still plenty of legendary hero left in him.”

The extra nice news is that if you own  Dying Light 2: Stay Human Ultimate Edition you will get The Beast for free!

“Development of Dying Light: The Beast originally started as a story DLC for Dying Light 2 Stay Human. But after two years of work, its size and scope has changed so much that it evolved into a standalone, self-contained experience,” say Techland. “To show appreciation for the community who patiently waited for the DLC, Techland will be offering Dying Light: The Beast at no extra cost to all owners of the Dying Light 2 Stay Human Ultimate Edition, delivering a full standalone adventure instead of just a DLC.”

Dying Light: The Beas coming to to PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, Xbox and PlayStation – and that includes last gen  – but no release date has been given.

Source: YouTube / Press Release

Seven years is a long time to wait after a cliffhanger ending, but as Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 ably proves, it takes a good long time to make a game, these days. Warhorse Studios found great success with the first game, selling millions of copies to allow them to grow both in their ambitions and as a studio. Picking up right where the last game ended, the adventure that awaits Sir Hans and Henry is bigger, more deadly, and will take you from the countryside and into the big city.

Spending several hours with the game, we got to experience the opening region and the events that kick this new narrative arc into gear, before jumping ahead to the big city and some of the politicking and possibilities that this region provides. There’s a pretty stark contrast between the two, most notably in terms of the environment that you’re exploring, but also in terms of pacing.

Dubbed ‘Bohemian Paradise’, the opening area is full of lush greenery and small villages surrounding the hilltop Trosky Castle, but we had only a glimpse of this amidst the narrative upheaval that greets Henry and his lord Sir Hans. They have been entrusted with delivering a message of peace to Lord Bergow, though as they get close, they’re greeted with suspicion and hostility from guards on patrol. There’s bandits in the area and they’re immediately suspicious of you, not least because of the respective allegiances in the war between King Wenceslas and the upstart King Sigismund.

That initial interaction starts to define who your version of Henry is. This is a fresh start from the first game, and Warhorse Studios describe it as a new arc – KCD was Henry becoming a man, while KCD 2 will be him becoming a warrior, but still seeking revenge for the murder of his parents, like he’s starring in a Shenmue game. Seeking to back Sir Hans up and express the honourable nature of our mission, I put my foot in it while trying to navigate the conversation with the guard’s captain, until Sir Hans steps back in and resolves the issue – of course, I doubt you can really start a fight at this point, but it lets you emphasise whether Henry will be a smooth-talking envoy or a strong, battling soldier that will fight to resolve issues, rather than talk too much.

You never make it to the castle, though, those aforementioned bandits ambushing your group and sending Sir Hans and Henry fleeing through the woods with just a pair of britches to hide their modesty. Thankfully the old lady who eventually takes them in, all battered, bruised and bleeding, doesn’t mind their lack of clothing, but once you actually reach Trosky, reality bites hard at Sir Hans, the brattier side to his summery character driving a wedge between the two. Also, you’ve got to go and find your dog, who went missing after the ambush.

It’s a compelling opening hour or so, giving a rather linear introduction to this game, providing you with some fighting practice, a bit of stealth, and revisiting a few of the key plot points via flashbacks, so you can enjoy this and understand Henry’s origins without having played the first game. However, it’s not a true representation of the more than 80 hours that will follow. That will be much more open and free for you to explore as you see fit, with gameplay and quest design that builds upon the style of the original. It’s when we leap ahead to explore Kuttenberg (now known as Kutná Hora in Czech) that we get to see this side of the game play out.

One of the most important cities within Bohemia at the time, Kuttenberg’s reputation was largely built on the silver mines that gave it so much wealth. This was a major economic centre because of it, with a minting press clanging away to produce currency, and people drawn to the area because of this.

Kuttenberg has been recreated in fantastic detail here, with Warhorse getting a lot of support from the city to help them build something authentic to the period. Leaning upon historical references and records, they’re able to peel back the centuries and restore buildings and structures back to what they would have been like – a walking tour through the city lets us see the comparison between the modern and preserved streets and structures, and how they look in the game, as well as educated guesses like an astronomical clock that they know was there, but have modelled after the world famous clock in Prague. While you might have a mental image of a world filled with muddy browns, Kuttenberg’s wealth was shown through colour, artistic construction and finery.

And naturally, with a large population centre, politics come to the fore and create conflict. Menhardt the master swordsman – a Fechter – has come from Frankfurt with a license from the king to found a brotherhood and spread his artistry in combat. But as he arrives in Kuttenberg, he finds another brotherhood from Prague has established itself, and the city council siding with them. All Menhardt wants – you’ll gather from his mixed English and German dialogue (in that Hollywood way that people never actually speak in when using foreign languages) – is the opportunity to fight and prove that he should be allowed to establish a brotherhood, but as they refuse to fight him, he hatches a plan with Henry to steal the Kuttenberg Sword from the local brotherhood and place it at the town hall to open them up to challenges.

There’s bound to be a bunch of ways to pull this off, but by far the easiest and most obvious is to sneak into the brotherhood’s house at night and steal the sword – people have routines through a 24-hour cycle, so you can skip forward to get to the point in time that you need. Nighttime is dictated by rules like needing to walk with a lamp or torch, so that you are above suspicion of being a thief, but you’ll encounter locked doors that need careful (and most importantly quiet) picking with a tricky, but enjoyable minigame, that can alert the people inside. Thankfully, if you are caught, then there’s still a way to trigger the duel and competition, just with the odds in the tournament being stacked against Menhardt and his brotherhood that you can join up to.

There’s been some significant improvements to the combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, though it’s building on the same foundations as the original game. You still have the five-pointed star reticule when fighting an opponent, giving you the ability to attack and block from either side, from above, jab down the middle or attack from below – these upward swings are now combined instead of being separate directions. I found it a little easier to grasp the basics in this game than with the first, learning a bit better how to parry and open an opponent’s guard, or to string together a flurry of blows. Don’t get cocky, though, because this is still a tricky style of combat to master.

Is there that much of a difference between Menhardt’s German school of combat and the Prague brotherhood? I couldn’t really say, but with their success and growth over the past seven years, Warhorse has grown the animation team from basically a single person, to having someone dedicated to each weapon and combat style. There should be greater distinction and nuance between them, letting your specialise.

But maybe you don’t want to be up close and personal? Fighting from afar will be perfectly viable, and maybe even preferred when the pitched battles can be much larger and more grand than before. You’ll see full-blown castle assaults, man the ramparts with a crossbow in hand, as opposed to a bow and arrow, and KCD2 will feature the earliest of firearms, including boom sticks that are basically a tube on a stick that you shove gunpowder and a bullet down, before making it go… well… boom!

There’s plenty more aspects to the game, all building upon the original, such as the public perception of Henry which shifts depending on your actions – so if you’re a thief, you’ll be branded as such and treated as one – or the in-depth alchemy system that has you physically mixing healing remedies. Oh, and of course there’s a fun game to sink your time into, though in this case it’s a historically accurate game of dice. It’s actually surprisingly addictive – well, I had to keep playing if I wanted my dog to have a sausage for dinner! – as you roll a bunch of dice and try to find pairs and runs with which you can score points and then keep rolling, but you importantly need to know when to quit, otherwise you’ll end up with no points for a round.

Put it all together and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is shaping up to be a real showcase for how much Warhorse Studios has grown, evolving their take on the historical setting and their approach to role playing games in general.

Our hands on time with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 came thanks to a press trip to Kutná Hora, the modern day Kuttenberg, with travel and accommodation provided by Warhorse and Plaion.

Rumours of a new Mafia game have been floating around for a while and they have now been confirmed with the reveal of Mafia: The Old Country. This time you will be heading to the 1900s Sicily underworld and the game will be out on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam.

“Uncover the origins of organized crime with a gritty mob story set in the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily. Fight to survive in this dangerous and unforgiving era, with action brought to life by the authentic realism and rich storytelling that the critically acclaimed Mafia series is known for.”

“Across the first three entries in the Mafia franchise, we introduced players to the world of the Mafia through brutal stories set in different eras,” said Nick Baynes, President of Hangar 13. “In Mafia: The Old Country, we’re going back to the roots of what fans love about the franchise, crafting a deep, linear narrative with that classic mob movie feeling, visiting a stunning new setting, and delivering it all in a tight, focused package perfect for fans of immersive experiences.”

A full reveal of the game will occur in December, so I would guess that would be at The Game Awards 2024.

Source: YouTube / 2K

There’s a fair bit of trepidation for what Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will actually be like as a game, in particular with the first person view switching to third person at times, and the blend of combat, puzzling, exploration and other gameplay ideas. It’s ironic that, with Tomb Raider and Uncharted having been compared countless times back to the classic Indiana Jones films, now an Indiana Jones game cannot escape their shadow.

MachineGames are charting their own course, though, taking inspiration from their own history, going back to the founding group’s history at Starbreeze Studios and the similar perspective shifting of Chronicles of Riddick. When viewed in that light, and seeing more and more slices of gameplay, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle starts to make more sense.

Of course, there’s one area that MachineGames doesn’t really have much say in. At Gamescom 2024, the studio has finally confirmed that yes, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to PlayStation 5 after all, despite Microsoft’s best efforts to dodge the leaks and rumours. It’s still coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC first – it’s out in December there, as opposed to Spring 2025 for PS5 owners – but it’s another capitulation in the console rivalry.

Gamescom is also where we visitors can watch a gameplay theatre presentation, which we were privy to (with some exclusive extras) before hand.

Indy might have a roguish tendency to pull a fast one with a pistol, but he’s always been a brawler more than a shooter, and that’s what he seems to be here, mixing together punches, whip strikes and occasional pistol shots. You’ll be able to make use of the environment, whether that’s using a knockout combo to finish a bruising enemy, shoving them down a level in a dig site, or grabbing a rolling pin from a nearby table to clonk them on the head.

All of this will take place in first person, keeping you rooted within the character, but there’s then shifts to third person when climbing or swinging across gaps on Indy’s whip.

I can’t help but wonder if the game might be better to stay in first person the entire time. We’ve had games like Mirror’s Edge which have integrated fast and fluid parkour with a first-person view, and I’m not entirely sold on the value that switching to the third person for a few seconds offers. Especially when stealth, which might benefit from shifting to the third person to give better spatial awareness, and sliding down a slope don’t make the switch. I hope it comes together for the full game.

Indy’s adventure will challenge him with more than just platforming and fighting. Taking place in 1937, between Raiders and The Last Crusade, we have peak Indiana Jones and a fresh Nazi threat to undermine. The story will see Indy piecing together some kind of fanciful archaeological shenanigans surrounding a great circle of temples and historical sites that rings the globe, landing himself in a race against Emmerich Voss. Along the way, he’ll team up with investigative reporter Gina Lombardi, who has her own reasons for trotting across the globe.

And globe-trotting is what they’ll do, with the journey taking them to the Vatican in Rome, the Sukhothai temples, Egyptian pyramids, the Himalayas and more – all created with reference material from the period, when places like the Sukhothai temples were still completely overgrown. All manner of ancient traps and puzzles await within these, and there’s some fun nods back to iconic moments in the film, such as Indy lifting a big statue from a plinth and initially being pleased that nothing bad happens… until sand starts pouring into the floor, forcing a struggle to get to a hatch high up in the wall. Alternatively, it could be Gina that triggers the bad things to happen.

Some of the puzzling will be immediately familiar from action adventures, such as directing beams of light with mirrors, and whipping at weakened stone in the environment to let loose a stream of water, but other puzzles have more of a point & click adventure feel – pour a bottle of wine into an offering plate before a statue and see a number revealed in red, giving you the answer for levers in another room.

Sometimes the puzzles will rely on using a camera to take photos of points of interest to reveal a clue or the next step, and those photos will fill out a journal, creating a record of your journey so far, collating information and thoughts on the adventure, and more. It’s a neat nod back to The Last Crusade, and can be seen as a naturalistic hints system.

Throughout all of this you’ll earn Adventure Points, which feed into the Adventure Books that you can find and unlock abilities with. These can include things like ‘True Grit’, which gives Indy another chance after losing a fight, just so long as you can crawl across the floor and pick up his hat.

Stealth and subterfuge will also play a significant part. On the one hand, sneaking allows you to choose when and how to start a fight, luring enemies away with distractions and then taking them out quickly and/or quietly to even up the odds. Other areas might need you to blend in, donning various disguises like you’re Agent 47 and then trying not to stand out and get noticed when walking through closed-off areas.

These disguises will generally be determined by the flow of the story – dress up as a clergyman to get behind the scenes at the Vatican, for example – but this isn’t a purely linear adventure. There will also be broader environments and places for you to explore and side quests that can take you off the beaten path a little. You will be able to journey back and forth to revisit previous places, potentially put disguises back on if you need them, and discover more Adventure Books and Points.

While MachineGames aren’t putting a figure on the length of this game, they are confidently stating that it’s longer than any game they’ve done before.

Well, there we go. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to PlayStation 5.

After months and months of only talking about the game in terms of Xbox Series X|S and PC, MachineGames had Geoff Keighley do the dirty work and confirm that the Indy adventure will also come to PlayStation 5, as part of Microsoft’s broadening push for cross-platform gaming.

However, there will still be a period of exclusivity. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle comes to Xbox Series X|S and PC on 9th  December 2025 – and on Xbox Game Pass Utlimate of course, while you can play three days early by pre-ordering the Premium Edition, Premium Edition Upgrade, or Collector’s Edition. The PlayStation 5 port will traipse along a few months later in Spring 2025.

Here’s a new trailer with Troy Baker exploring the world in which he will take on the role of Indiana Jones:

This will only further the rumours that Microsoft will bring practically everything to PlayStation 5 in the fullness of time – rumours earlier this year already suggested that Indiana Jones was on the way over, alongside Starfield, and potentially even Halo.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a mixed first and third person action adventure set between Raiders of the Lost Arc and The Last Crusade in 1937, and includes characters from the original film returning including Doctor Marcus Brody, originally played by Denholm Elliott. Doctor Jones is working late at Marshall College but is woken up late to find a rather imposing thief stealing a sacred relic. He then heads to Vatican to figure out why that one particular relic was stolen. From there the story will take players to Sukhothai, the Pyramids, the Himalayas and beyond.

The iconic whip naturally makes an appearance and can be used for attacking enemies to stun them, pull their legs and more, as a distraction in stealth, or for swinging around the environments, and there will be plenty of puzzles for Indy to solve. While it’s mainly a first person game, it will swap to third person when certain actions are performed, such as climbing, and for cutscenes.

Gamescom Opening Night Live just pulled the rabbit out of the hat with the return of gaming legend Peter Molyneux. Younger readers not have a clue who he is, but suffice to say he was one the rockstar developers in the 16 bit days and created the God game genre with Populous,

He then went of to make the likes of Black and White and Fable before deciding to make a mobile game, Curiosity: What’s Inside the Cube? The “game” involved everyone in the world tapping away at a cube to remove layers, with the person who made the final tap winning a prize. It was an absolute mess, so he then went to make a mobile god game, Godus, which also ended up as a mess. Thankfully he seems to have realised he made some mistakes and opened his interview saying “After messing around on mobile – what the hell was I doing?!?”

So then, on to his new god game, Master of Albion which is coming to PC. Created by a team of 20 veterans it allows your create and customise almost everything, from buildings to weapons. During the day the aim is to craft and build your town, but by night you have to defend it from evil creatures. The key feature here is that you can swap from God mode to third person and take control of a character and go and smash some skulls in yourself.

“The story of Albion is one of power and consequence, a rich and deep narrative set in a world full of quests and moral choices. Navigate your way through intrigue and plot – kings come and go, lords shake you by the hand then stab you in the back, and the people work like dogs and are treated no better.”

“Gifted god like, ancient powers, you face an enemy the likes of which have not been seen in hundreds of years. Magic is returning to the hills and halls of Albion, threatening to tear down the the very foundations of society. Unravel the mystery of the mages, defeat the enemy that lurks in the night and conquer a sorcery that could kill us all.”

You can Wishlist the game on Steam right now.

Source: Youtube

TiMi Studios’s Team Jade has shared a fresh look at Delta Force: Hawk Ops, announcing that the game will be playable during the next Steam Next Fest in October, before kicking off PC Early Access in Q4 of this year. The game is coming to PS5, PS4, PC and mobile.

Delta Force: Hawk Ops is set to be a free-to-play online FPS, reviving the classic game franchise for a modern audience. The Delta Force will return with a lot of high tech and upgraded weapons within a dynamic world. Large scale multiplayer battles look like they will have the kind of vehicular combat and building destruction that will appeal to Battlefield fans, while there’s also the kinds of high tech gadgetry that has come to define Ghost Recon games of late.

There will be multiple game modes, including Havoc Warfare, which will include battles across land, sea and air, while Hazard Operations shifts gears for an extraction shooter form. There’s also a Black Hawk Down campaign that is inspired by the Ridley Scott film.

The game has been in development for a while, first at NovaLogic, before the rights were acquired by Tencent and development duties handed over to TiMi Studios, who are best known for having developed Call of Duty: Mobile.

Gamescom Opening Night Live has taken a short break from game trailers to preview a new anthology series coming to Prime Video which is a love letter to gaming. Created by the same team behind the excellent Love, Death, and Robots it features stories set in the worlds of some of our favourite games.

That includes (deep breath) Armored Core, Concord, Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament and Warhammer 40,000.

It also includes “various PlayStation Studios games” and you can see from the header image that includes God of War! It seems this will be a special “PlayStation” episode that features our favourite characters, so Kratos may finally get to meet Nathan Drake, Aloy, Joel and Ellie and Ratchet and Clank. That’s just a guess by the way, but wouldn’t that be awesome?

“Secret Level weaves a tapestry of iconic games across multiple mediums, to tell a series of unique and captivating stories,” said Vernon Sanders, head of television, Amazon MGM Studios. “Created and led by Tim Miller, Blur Studio, and Supervising Director Dave Wilson, each episode will take our global Prime Video customers on a brand new journey with breath-taking animation and imaginative storytelling.”

Source: YouTube

2K and Firxis have announced the release date for Civilization VII, with 11th February 2025 the day to book of work. Then the next day, and probably the day after that if you’re easily lured into playing just one more turn.

The team at Firaxis will be holding a more in-depth stream of their own after Opening Night Live, which you can view here at 9:30PM:

From the ONL trailer we can see how the studio are pushing on the visual stylings of the game and the dynamism of the world. There’s tornadoes, volcanos and other terrible forces of nature, while cities sprawl across the map with intricate detail… just waiting to get crushed under the tracks of invading tanks, or get blasted by nukes.

Stay tuned for more when we get a look at Civ VII during Gamescom this week!

In the meantime, here’s some blurb from 2K:

The award-winning strategy game franchise returns with a revolutionary new chapter. Sid Meier’s Civilization® VII empowers you to build the greatest empire the world has ever known!Rule as one of many legendary leaders from throughout history. Establish your civilization, construct cities and architectural wonders to expand your territory, conquer or cooperate with rival civilizations in pursuit of prosperity, and explore the far reaches of the unknown world. Will you build an empire that stands the test of time?Sid Meier’s Civilization® VII is a 4X strategy game developed by the legendary team at Firaxis Games, developers of the Civilization and XCOM franchises.

It has been quite a while since the last Civ, as Civilization VI was released on PC way back in 2016. It was subsequently ported to Switch, PlayStation, Xbox and even mobile devices. We gave the Switch version 9/10 in our review, Nick saying, “There’s plenty to sink your teeth into, providing hours upon hours of unique experiences, accompanied by a divine soundtrack to really get you in the mood for building nations. Civ VI is a titan of a game and well worth your time, even if you’ve already spent hours on the PC version, because, now it’s portable, which is potentially dangerous to those who have jobs. Now the threat of taking “just one more turn” can haunt you wherever you go.”

Starfield is getting two updates and the first is the free Rev-8 vehicle that will be available right about now. “Now is your chance to explore new frontiers (and reach new heights) in your very own land cruiser,” say Bethesda,

We also got an release date for the Shattered Space DLC and that will be out on September 30th 2024.  There’s some decidedly spooky vibes to the DLC and trailer, with a mysterious power stirring the city of Dazra on House Va-runn’s hidden homeworld – this will be a big new area to explore akin to the other capital planets in the base game. Here you’ll investigate a new cosmic threat, explore a brand new planet and find new weapons, spacesuits, and gear.

“The home planet of House Va’ruun remains a mystery to the vast majority of the citizens of the Settled Systems,” say Bethesda. “The religious zealots that make up this clandestine faction are known only by their dangerous reputation. When a distress signal originating from a derelict star station leads you on a path to Va’ruun’kai, you’ll begin to uncover the secrets surrounding the followers of the Great Serpent. Explore a new location, take on new enemies and experience the story of House Va’ruun when Shattered Space launches later this year.”

We took a look at Starfield when it was released and this is what Stefan had to say:

“Skyrim and Fallout 4 had a space baby and named it Starfield. As with every child, there’s the hope that it will better its parents as it grows into adulthood, and from the time spent with Starfield, I’d say it’s right up there with Bethesda’s best. I’ve certainly enjoyed what I’ve seen so far and the new setting, but there’s just no getting away from the fact that it has its mother’s eyes and its dad’s nose.”

Source: YouTube

Capcom has shared a good long look at Monster Hunter Wilds for Gamescom Opening Night Live, featuring plenty of big beastie battling. Monster Hunter Wilds is in development for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and it’s coming out in 2025.

The third trailer for the game revealed the new Scarlet Forest locale, introduced us to battles with the Lala Barina, as well as the apex predator, the Rey Dau. Oh, and of course there was some new ways to cook and camp on show. Everybody loves cooking in games.

Capcom recently ran through the gamut of weapons and abilities that you’ll have available to you with a series of short and pithy individual video trailers – see the first of those here.

Players will have access to new gadgets and companions like the Seikret, a new creature that you can mount and ride across the open world. The Seikret can also automatically follow the trail to get you to the target monster, and give you time to heal, sharpen your weapons and grab useful items and materials that you meander past. It also has a holster to let you swap between primary and secondary weapons.

Then there’s the Slinger, which is standard gear for hunters in Monster Hunter Wilds and will replace the Wirebug from Monster Hunter Rise. It can shoot out ammo gathered in the environment, and can grapple to draw in distant items (even while riding the Seikret), or interact with certain parts of the environment.

And you have Focus Mode, a new mechanic and combat technique, letting you aim your attacks and guards more precisely. They will now go in the direction the camera is facing, giving you more manual control. Focus Mode will highlight wounds on monsters, which you’ll then want to directly target to deal extra damage. It also enables Focus Strikes, which are particular special attacks.

The hotly anticipated action RPG Path of Exile 2 will be heading to a PC Early Access launch on 15th November this year, Grinding Gear Games have announced.

In addition to this date announcement, the trailer gave a glimpse of some of big, bad bosses that will feature in the world of Wraeclast, just waiting for you to come back be the snot out of them.

 

Originally announced back in 2019 during ExileCon, fans of the action RPG have been patiently waiting for the sequel to the emerge. The second trailer arrived in 2021, giving a good gameplay walkthrough trailer and explanation of how it melds with the original game in certain ways, and we had a gameplay teaser last summer as well.

Funcom have released a new trailer for Dune: Awakening  explaining how the game will play, the different character types, multiplayer features, mining, and base building. There are also secrets, co-op missions, flight, and the in game radio will give you regular updates of key event.

You will also get to play politics and pledge yourself to one of the houses and best of all, deploy a thumper and summon a sandworm!

Dune: Awakening unfolds in an alternate universe where Paul Atreides never existed, and House Atreides survives the attempt to destroy it. This setting grants Funcom the freedom to craft a unique narrative within the Dune universe, empowering players to make characters who can  influence the world without Paul overshadowing everything. The war between House Atreides and its enemies does continue on the surface of Arrakis, yet the Emperor has decreed that the Spice must continue to flow without any hindrance.

One of the core mysteries of Dune: Awakening is the disappearance of the Fremen. They have left behind remnants of their society, and their disappearance also leaves a vacuum of power that different factions are trying to fill. It is not confirmed if the Fremen do still exist, or if they have been wiped out completely. The narrative diverges from the original books and movies, as certain characters who would have perished still live, and various factions are advancing their agendas without Paul’s influence.

In Dune: Awakening players will come into contact with different religious and spiritual beliefs, which differ from group to group. This feeds into the overall story of how the various groups and sects clash with each other for dominance of Arrakis. This influences the gameplay as players will experience the mystical trials of the Fremen and explore various belief systems. It’s important to understand that although Paul was on the Messiah’s journey in the original Dune story, the player’s character does not assume the same role of the Messiah.

Dune: Awakening launches on PC early next year, you can pre-order the game on Steam via this link.

Source: YouTube

Tarsier Studios, the original developers behind the hit horror puzzler Little Nightmares, have announced their next horror game, REANIMAL. The game is in development for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Reanimal looks to keep a lot of the same kind of terror and tone as Little Nightmares, but will feature a new world, setting and menace, while putting co-op play front and centre. The story follows a brother & sister as they go through this hellish world to try and find their missing friends and then escape a place that they used to call home.

You’ll always play as a duo, whether that’s playing solo with an AI buddy, or in co-op, with support for both local and online play – you can pick which of the two you want to play as. There’s a shared, directed camera to try and keep you together, sharing the scares along the way, and there will naturally be plenty of gameplay elements that rely on the two of you to work together to progress and escape.

This fantastical new horror setting is a fragmented island that you’ll explore by boat and on land, with the game keeping the “small people being hunted by bigger creatures” vibe of Little Nightmares. The horror that is now haunting them, and which tore apart their world stems from a shared past that they have with their friends, and has unleashed monsters with more of an animalistic feel. Tarsier is trying to imbue this world with a sense of violence, so that even an otherwise pleasant pine forest is twisted with nastiness, an industrial region is fogged up and threatening, and there’s literal violence in how the kids’ home was destroyed.

We’re big fans of the Little Nightmares games, and while Bandai Namco is taking that series forward with Supermassive Games taking over the reigns for Little Nightmares III, it’s great to see Tarsier continuing to explore this genre and style of horror game with Reanimal.

One of the most compelling game announcements from a few years ago, Arc Raiders has re-emerged with developer AEmbark Studios confirming a 2025 release date for the PvPvE shooter.

The trailer was very spartan, to be honest, showing next to nothing compared even to the original announcement, but we do have some trailer blurb:

ARC Raiders is third-person PvPvE action survival shooter coming in 2025. Take on the role of a Raider, fighting for your own survival and that of your underground colony of Speranza — scavenging and hunting for resources that must be extracted home safely from the surface.

Arc Raiders was announced back in 2021 at The Game Awards, initially with a 2022 release target, which it then slipped from. A message from the team – helmed by ex-Battlefield lead Patrick Söderlund – explained that they need more time to expand their upcoming co-op shooter.

Geoff Keighley say sthat the game has undergone a lot of changes, but we’ll just have to take his word for it until there’s a big gameplay re-reveal. One of the key differences seems to be the shift to PvPvE, and not just PvE gameplay.

Gamescom Opening Live has kicked off with a new look at Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. The video shows part of the Most Wanted level from the Campaign, Epic would be one word to describe the footage, check it out.

“While the Gulf War commands the global spotlight, a shadowy clandestine force has infiltrated the highest levels of the CIA, branding anyone who resists as traitors. Exiled from their agency and country that once hailed them as heroes, Black Ops veteran Frank Woods and his team find themselves hunted by the military machine that created them.”

The video also shows off a new feature which they have called Omnimovement. “Across the entire game, players will push beyond their limits with several new global innovations, including omnimovement, the most fluid boots-on-the-ground Call of Duty movement to date, that utilizes the ability to seamlessly chain combat maneuvers in any direction.”

As usual the game will include multiplayer with 16 new maps at launch, including 12 core 6v6 maps and 4 Strike maps that can be played 2v2 or 6v6. There will also be the “return of a more traditional Prestige system, bigger and more rewarding than ever.”

Of course there is also a zombies mode, “Black Ops 6 also marks the return of Round-Based Zombies, the fan-favorite mode where players will take down hordes of the undead in two brand-new maps at launch. Post-launch, players can look forward to even more exciting maps and groundbreaking experiences dropping into both Multiplayer and Zombies.”

There are two versions available to pre-order. The “Cross Gen Standard Edition” includes:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
• Early Access to the Open Beta
• Woods Operator Pack
• Reflect 115 Camo Pack

There is also the “Vault Edition” that includes

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
• Early Access to the Open Beta
• Woods Operator Pack
• Reflect 115 Camo Pack
• Hunters vs. Hunted Operator Pack
• Mastercraft Weapon Collection
• BlackCell (1 Season)
• GobbleGum Pack for Zombies

Source: YouTube / Activision

Hot on the heels of the Borderlands film release, Gearbox has announced that Borderlands 4 is coming… and it’s coming next year in 2025!

All that we have is this teaser trailer at this time, depicting a vast crystalline attack on a moon and planet, before the now iconic Psycho bandit mask is revealed to confim that yes, this is Borderlands 4. “The next Borderlands” was confirmed to be in development earlier this year, but this states clearly that it’s the next numbered entry in the series.

This announcement is sure to go down well amongst series fans. While the film did… not meet expectations, there’s still a huge amount of love for the Borderlands series and its spin-offs – Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. We defniitely preferred Wonderlands to Borderlands 3, in large part for the tone and style of humour, and hope Gearbox strikes a fresh balance between the two.

We said of Borderlands 3, “I’ve got very mixed feelings about Borderlands 3. Overall I like it and it’s fun to play, but it could have been so much more and the writing feels like time traveling back to your high school days and being surprised and a little disappointed at how immature everyone is. Few things in life are as embarrassing as the person you were five years ago. If you’re not embarrassed, then I’m sorry to say that you may well be the Borderlands 3 of your friend group; stuck in the past unable to grow or change in any meaningful way, relying on fart jokes as a stand-in for your personality.”

Earlier this year, Take-Two acquired Gearbox from Embracer for $460 million – paid for in newly created stocks that Embracer is expected to cash out as soon as possible to help ease their cashflow problems. Borderlands 4 would have been deep into development at the time, pushing Take-Two to make the acquisition of one of their key money-makers. They also acquired the Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms and Duke Nukem IP at the same time.

In 2010, Enslaved Odyssey to the West made its entrance onto the gaming scene. It wasn’t the most challenging game out there, nor did it bring with it a defining gameplay mechanic, but Enslaved had something that made it stand out: the heart showcased by its characters and engaging story. Just like the recent Black Myth: Wukong, it takes inspiration from Chinese tale Journey to the West, and it’s a story that explores the themes of fear, loss, cooperation, and the changing nature of relationships, which is made all the better as central characters Monkey, Trip, and Pigsy interact with each other so well.

Revisiting Enslaved Odyssey to the West 14 years after its release, and the last time I played it, made me consider whether I’d been seeing the game through rose-tinted glasses. If we really want to be reductive, Enslaved Odyssey to the West is an escort mission spread out over eight hours. At the start of the game, Monkey and Trip, who do not know each other, escape from a slaver’s airship, crashing down into the ruins of our civilisation. The name of Enslaved comes from the very literal enslaving of Monkey by Trip. While Monkey is out cold, Trip crowns him with a slaver headpiece, which allows her to give him commands. It also links the two, so if Trip dies, Monkey dies. Trip is out in the real wider world for the first time, and in her first interaction with Monkey, she saw a musclebound man chasing and shouting at her.

Trip doesn’t enslave Monkey to use him as a tool, but to guarantee her own safety as she finds herself in the company of a man who could quite easily cause her serious harm. She doesn’t know his intentions, and this is the only way she feels that she can be safe. Of course, Monkey is unhappy with the situation but soon accepts his fate and works with Trip to get her home. The story doesn’t follow a typical master and slave theme though. In most situations, Monkey is in charge and takes control, often having to order Trip around to move to places or carry out tasks. There are times Trip makes requests, but they are given as general instructions and not orders.

Despite, the name and the situation, both Monkey and Trip learn that the only way they can survive the world is through cooperation and partnership. The fall of our civilisation is not outright explained, as it happened a couple of hundred years ago, and neither of the two main characters are sure. What we can surmise from all of the mechs running around is that these robots were used in war and either turned on humans or were programmed to turn on them, which led to the majority of humanity being killed while some survivors created smaller enclaves or roamed alone, trying to survive in a world where danger lurked.

It is these dangers that the two navigate, Monkey through combat and Trip through her technical knowledge. She is the one Monkey relies on to operate controls and cause distractions, as well as upgrade his gear, while she relies on Monkey to keep her safe from the mechs that attack. They both later come to rely on Pigsy, who enjoyably looks like a pig and acts like a pig as well, to help them. Pigsy has his own goals but is happy to lend his services, though not without almost getting Monkey killed on purpose and hitting on Trip, who at this point has just found her father dead. Pigsy is portrayed as unlikeable, but at the end of the game he makes a big sacrifice for the others. In his standalone DLC, again Pigsy comes across as an idiot and braggart, but enjoys some character growth as he learns that he had what he needed by his side all that time.

Returning to the combat, and it is very basic compared to the games that have followed in the last 14 years. Enemies attack in small groups, with Monkey wielding a staff that can stun and destroy enemies through melee attacks, or firing plasma. There are a few enemy types and most are easy to take down, and the majority of the boss fights, while entertaining and set in interesting arenas, are quite repetitive as well. Even navigation is straightforward, with climbing points literally glowing and really not possible to miss at all taking away any challenge of finding your way. The camera is janky too at times, moving so focus on enemies is lost, letting them disappear off screen and attack from range. Yet, none of this takes away from the game’s charm. The world and the characters are in some way relatable, each going through their own development and growth. Monkey from a gruff loner to someone who stands up and fights for those by his side, Trip from a scared, lost, and unsure person to having more confidence in her abilities to be able to survive the world.

The final showdown at Pyramid also poses an ethical question: what is the nature of real life? We find that those who have been captured have not been enslaved but placed in a simulation to live lives from the old world, instead of having to survive in the harsh reality of its ruins. Monkey glimpses this world and calls it beautiful, but Trip destroys it all before asking if what she has done is right? We will never know as there is no sequel coming, but a big part of it would have been the fallout from Pyramid’s destruction. You suddenly have hundreds of people yanked from a reality where they had families and friends, and shoved back into the harsh fallen world. This could lead to mass mental trauma and PTSD as people grieve those they have lost, and may no longer be capable of surviving. However, it can also be argued that these people were enslaved to an idea that no longer existed and needed to be pulled out so they could build a new world.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is still worth a playthrough now, both for those who played it way back, and for those who have never experienced it. You will come away from the game having enjoyed yourself and a bit let down that plans for a sequel were cancelled.

A few years on from the two-case collection of Famicom Detective Club remakes, Nintendo is following up on the promise and potential of this visual novel series with the first fully new entry in 27 years. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is coming out at the end of this month, putting our youthful sleuths through the wringer of another traumatic murder case.

From today and through to the game’s launch on 29th August, Nintendo is teasing out the first few chapters of the game with a free demo, and we’ve sampled the prologue and first chapter of the game a little ahead of time.

It’s another day at Utsugi Decetive Agency, with our 19 year old protagonist (who you get to name) continuing on as an assistant detective at the agency. Barely have you said hello to Utsugi when the phone rings with the police calling you to a strange and unsettling crime scene.

A body has been found that morning, a teenager still in middle school… but they were found with a paper bag on their head, marked with a smiling face.

This quickly grows into the revelation that this could be tied to a decades old case that Utsugi was aware of and the urban legend of Emio – The Smiling Man, a person with a bag on their head who finds crying girls and tells them quite specifically that they’re going to give them a smile that lasts forever. But is this the same killer? A copycat? Something else entirely?

If you’ve played the remade Famicom Detective Club duology, or even the more jovial Ace Attorney series, you’ll immediately find your footing with the visual novel-style gameplay of this game.

The early conversations and interactions through the Prologue and Chapter 1 gradually set out the scope of what you’ll have to do. Most of the time you’ll select ‘Ask/Listen’ and potentially a sub-topic to engage in conversation with someone, but sometimes the conversation might dry up, nudging you to ‘Look/Examine’ the person or the environment to prise out new clues, or to ‘Think’ and have your internal dialogue nudge you down another path. Thankfully you are generally prompted by highlighted words when you need to think or if there’s something new to ask about, though you might end up still simply tapping through all the options to try and find the one with new info.

There’s further options, to call over to another person, dip into your journal with all the collated details on people, and more, though the opening chapter only touches on this lightly.

One thing that does return for the chapter conclusion is the case review, a sit down chat with Ayumi to go over the facts and latest discoveries and try to draw some conclusions. It’s basically a mini quiz to see if you’ve been paying even a modicum of attention, though you can also point out suspects that could be a bit of a punt.

Emio – The Smiling man seems to take a few incremental steps forward in terms of the game presentation. The art style is very much in keeping with the 2021 remakes, but I feel like there’s a shade more animation to characters in their idle states, their hair waving gently in a breeze, and the like. Animation to go along with dialogue is snappy and to the point, fading between motions to quickly relate a motion, but without dragging thing out. Helpful when the game’s voice work is Japanese only, so you  can skip through dialogue as fast as you can read.

But while this is a more serious kind of mystery than an Ace Attorney, that doesn’t mean there isn’t space for some unusual and memorable characters. In particular detectives Kuze and Kamihara are polar opposites to one another, Kuze being very intense and by-the-book, while Kamihara is a rather unserious character in some ways, deliberately a bit mean, it seems.

This is really just the very beginning of the case, and I can read barely anything into how it’s going to progress at this point, but I’ve no doubt that there will be plenty of twists and turns, more murders, and a gradually emerging gallery of suspects.

Chapter 2 will be available within the demo later this week on 23rd August, before the third chapter is added on 28th August ahead of the full launch. I’m already keen to peel back more of the mystery in the coming days.

Jackbox Games has announced that Jackbox Naughty Pack, their first adults-only collection of minigames, will launch across all major platforms on 12th September 2024.

Depending on your friends group, you might be confused that this is the first naughty pack, when you can pretty much make all of the games in the series a bit filthy, just from your own answers and creative endeavours, but Jackbox Games is leaning into that aspect with a trio of games.

They are:

• Fakin’ It All Night Long (Social Deduction): A returning sequel to Fakin’ It, this game will assign one Faker per round and it is up to the group to determine which player is lying when asked questions such as “Put a finger up for every public restroom you’ve used today”. This game introduces a brand-new “remote play” mode so that everyone can join even if they’re not in the same room. 3 – 8 players.
• Dirty Drawful (Drawing, Guessing): Another returning sequel, this game challenges players to draw a picture based off of the dirty prompt they receive on their phones. Their mission is to convince everyone else that their prompt best fits the drawing, or if they’re the artist, to best match the correct prompt. 3 – 8 players.
• Let Me Finish (Debate): This new presentation game examines life’s serious questions like, “Where is this mailbox’s butt?” or “How does this avocado get aroused?” Everyone gets a chance to speak their mind, but will others pick up what you’re putting down? 3 – 8 players.

Jackbox Naughty Pack will be priced at $21.69 / €21.69, which isn’t that far off from a regular pack, which typically includes five games. That could be a disappointment for people, though as long as these are three absolute bangers, that wouldn’t be too bad.

The tenth entry in the long-running party game series arrived last year with Jason saying, “Jackbox Party Pack 10 is one of the stronger entries in the Jackbox pantheon, and I’m a big fan of it as a whole. Each game has its own pacing, and while I do think everyone will find their favourites as always, the mix feels very good this time around, and even the trivia game is fun. This is a great party pack that’ll be a good addition to any game night. Apart from Dodo Re Mi – I hope those digital birds stay eaten.”

If you took a guess at the many. many games that could have influenced a King Kong game I doubt you would have guessed “Flashback” even if you did have one hundred guesses, but that appears to be the case with Kong: Survivor Instinct.

Set in the official Monsterverse the game is set shortly after the events of 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong and finds you playing a father searching for his lost daughter in the wreckage of a city.  It will also include the first ever appearance of Abaddon, a giant spider Titan who is briefly referenced but never seen in the film. Hopefully it will be better than the last Kong game!

“7Levels has brilliantly captured a unique corner of the Monsterverse through a gripping 2.5D action-adventure experience, weaving in a very human storyline,” said Legendary Entertainment’s VP of Interactive Media Sam Rappaport. “Experiencing the narrative through the eyes of a civilian, unaffiliated with any agencies, adds a layer of realism and emotional depth that we hope will resonate with our fans.”

Here are the key features;

Key Features

• True Monsterverse Adventure – Influence the Titans with Monarch tech and use their enormous strength to your advantage as you navigate a treacherous maze of collapsing buildings, toxic leaks, and raging fires. Scavenge for resources, weapons, and tools to solve environmental puzzles and defend yourself against both human and monster enemies.
• Face the Legendary Kong – Explore and survive as you encounter Kong in all his majestic glory, face the formidable Abaddon, and confront other new and returning superspecies and Titans! Whether you scavenge through half-destroyed buildings or fight off mercenaries, these enormous monsters are nearby, directly or indirectly impacting your gameplay. Though the Titans pose a lethal threat, you can—and must—influence their behavior with the ORCA Σ, a new prototype inspired by Monarch’s technology.
• Alan Jonah Returns – Discover an official Monsterverse story set shortly after the events of Godzilla vs. Kong. Stand your ground against the Hyenas, a mercenary group led by Alan Jonah. Reemerging after the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the former eco-terrorist leader returns in Kong: Kong: Survivor Instinct with a new villainous scheme.
• A Father’s Mission to Rescue His Daughter – Take on the role of David, an oil rig worker braving a crumbling city to find your only child, Stacy. Make your way through the districts while encountering fellow survivors taking shelter among the rubble, mourning their loved ones or on the verge of giving up hope. Feel the awe-inspiring terror Titans bring upon a city through the eyes of a father desperate to find his daughter!

Kong: Survivor Instinct will be launching later this year on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. Yep, no last gen or Switch versions which seems slightly odd, it doesn’t look like it be too much of a push to get it running on a Switch.

Source: Press release/YouTube

Square Enix have announced that Final Fantasy XVI will be coming to both Steam and the Epic Game Store on September 19th 2024. The whet your appetitive there is a free demo available right now on both stores, here’s the link for EGS, and here’s the link for Steam.

As usual there are a couple of variations of the release.  Final Fantasy XVI Standard Edition  includes the base game, or the Complete Edition  includes the exciting DLC chapters “Echoes of the Fallen” and “The Rising Tide” at a discounted price. You can also buy the DLC chapters individually or as part of the Final Fantasy XVI Expansion Pass, which includes both chapters. All of these will be available on launch day.

If you pre-oder the game on either Steam or the Epic Games Store will also receive the following in-game DLC items:

• Brave Blade Weapon
• Cait Sith Charm (Gil Boost Accessory)
• “Sixteen Bells” Orchestrion Roll

The game originally launched in June 2023 on PlayStation 5 and we gave it a whopping 9/10 in our review.  “If you’re a fan of strong narrative experiences, Final Fantasy lore, breath-taking graphics and a particularly sassy Moogle, and you don’t mind a sprinkling of The Witcher, The Handmaids Tale and the many accents of Old Blighty, then Final Fantasy XVI is the game for you,” said Nic. “Heck, it might just be the best Final Fantasy yet!”

If you need even more convincing you should get the game then let me remind you it won our PlayStation Game of the Year foe 2023.

“Final Fantasy XVI is very different to its predecessors. First and foremost, it’s a lot more grown up, with the sex, swearing and everything else that its muse, Game of Thrones, offers. Then there’s the set-piece Eikonic battles, where players duke it out as the Summons the franchise is famed for. It looks and sounds utterly spectacular.”

“This game is a must-play for all action-RPG fans who want something a little more grown up. It shines for its lore and its lack of exposition for the sake of it, with reams of backstory hidden just a button-press away, offering a flow that feels more natural than any other Final Fantasy game to date. Its characters are fantastic, and as you grow to love them, their moments of sacrifice hit in a way unfelt since the likes of Final Fantasy X.”

Source: Press Release

C-Smash VRS was easily one of the best games from the PlayStation VR 2’s launch window. Taking the cult classic arcade and Dreamcast game Cosmic Smash, it shifted the perspective, giving us a minimalist blend of Breakout and real-life Squash for a compelling VR sports game.

But shouldn’t everyone be allowed to smash cosmically? Not just the relative few with fancy hats? Enter C-Smash VRS: New Dimension, a fresh launch and free update coming at the end of September that will bring back flat-screen play and arcade delights alongside all the VR goodness of before.

 

New Dimension feeds a lot more of the original Cosmic Smash back into C-Smash VRS, specifically with the shift back to a third-person camera – there’s both a dynamic tracking cam and a pulled-back fixed camera – and seeing your avatar race back and forth as you position yourself to slap the ball back down the arena.

Going hands-on back-to-back with a classic arcade cabinet, there’s a very familiar feel between them, with the way that your avatar is animated in running, jumping and hitting, the ease and accessibility of timing shots, and more. However, New Dimension has added a few extra flourishes and moves on top of that. Whether they’re new moves or old, it’s pretty cool to see your character pulling off wall jumps, seeing the spinning flourish of a power shot, or a last ditch dive to reach a ball that’s heading outside of your hitting sweet spot.

Every mode from C-Smash VRS is available to play in New Dimension, whether it’s the Journey mode through strings of action puzzle stages, the endless Infinity mode, co-op or head-to-head multiplayer. Through all of the multiplayer modes, one of the key factors to New Dimension is that this bridges the divide between VR and flat-screen play.

This isn’t quite the first time that this has been done in VR gaming, since we have cross-play in digital board games like Demeo, or more significantly with racing games like Gran Turismo 7 and flight games. However, C-Smash VRS: New Dimension is possibly the first time that we’re dealing with two completely different styles of motion and control.

GT7 or Star Wars Squadrons might give VR players a greater awareness of their surroundings, but you’re still fundamentally fixed in the cockpit and have the limits of your vehicle. New Dimension has VR players with a first-person view and full motion tracking of your arms going up against the abstracted arcade action of the flat-screen game.

It’s a really fascinating problem, but one that RapidEyeMovers and Wolf & Wood are very close to getting just right. We went through the gamut of head-to-head multiplayer options, myself playing on TV in London against Wolf & Wood’s Ryan Bousfield up in Newcastle, and had some good fun and close matches, despite the completely different controls.

A few things stood out the more that I played, though. Depending on your preferences, C-Smash VRS is perhaps a bit too lenient with allowing you to press the hit button well before the ball gets back to you. You do want to try to position yourself and time the button press to get the best power and control, but there’s a lot of give here and your avatar can almost always make that diving hit to dribble the ball back down the court.

At the same time, there’s more advanced moves that have much, much less margin for error. A jump shot is very easy to end up with whiffing at clean air, and cool as it looks, so can a wall jump shot. When playing against another person who’s actively aiming for the edges of your reach, these are pretty important to master, and hopefully the final product can bring these two extremes a bit closer together.

VR versus TV play works wonderfully well and feels like it should be well balanced. A VR player will need to have better natural hand-eye coordination than a TV player, especially when trying to pinpoint a shot at a small target, but that physical control gives a higher ceiling for play.

Coming out on 26th September, C-Smash VRS: New Dimension is set to be all things to fans of hitting balls with rackets. This is probably the game that fans of the original would have hoped for, a modern successor with a bunch more modes, block types and power ups, but with familiar gameplay and feel. And you can always still pop a VR headset on as well, now hopefully with more people to play with online.

PQube and developer Octeto Studios have revealed the release date for Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire, their homage to classic skyfaring JRPG adventures. The game will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC on 10th october.

Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire follows Glenn Windwalker as he sails through the skies and takes a rag-tag bunch of pirates into battle. There will be a lot of action taking place in the skies, with a turn-based battle system for the aerial combat, but you’ll also set foot on solid ground to explore locations around the world and converse with other characters.

It’s pretty clear that Sky Oceans is a tribute to the classic Skies of Arcadia series, both in terms of the setting and the visual style, but we’d expect that this game can also carve out its own niche and gameplay direction. This feels like it will be right at home on handhelds like Switch and Steam Deck.

A demo for the game is available right now on Steam, if you want to check it out now.

With such an established format as the visual novel, games now quite often look to break outside of the text-heavy storytelling with snippets of other gameplay genres  that help break up the monotony of tapping endlessly through often unvoiced dialogue. Some of my favourite games of this style, VA-11 HALL-A and Coffee Talk, let you mix drinks and brew beverages between conversations, and that blend of interaction creates such a unique connection with the game and it’s characters. Tavern Talk takes that formula and steeps it in high-fantasy, but with a uniquely modern and tabletop-inspired voice that makes it one of the most unique takes on a Dungeons & Dragons style setting I’ve seen in gaming.

In Tavern Talk, your humble inn and drinkery serves as a hub for adventurers, warriors, and pretty much anyone else to gather at. Some are looking for rest after a tough battle, others are sharing quests they need party members for, and a few just need a refreshing beverage and someone to talk to.

On the surface, a lot of these characters are pretty standard fantasy stereotypes – your pale blonde elves, your stout dwarf warriors, your aloof assassins and so on – but what makes all of them so interesting is that they aren’t characterised and written like typically stoic fantasy heroes. Instead, their casual tone and quite literal adherence to things like the D&D alignment chart make them feel more like a real persons tabletop character mid-session. It helps them come to life in a much more interesting fashion, and leads to fun moments where you might see two characters with very different personalities instantly connect on a subject because of their placements on the alignment chart – you can even check this in-game through your journal.

When one of these characters visits your shop, they’ll ask you to make a drink for them. On top of general preferences for flavour or style, your patrons will also have stat-related needs that your concoction has to help with, requiring you to brew something that boosts strength, charisma, dexterity, intelligence, or defence.

The act of brewing a beverage isn’t very complicated, and I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, the simplistic nature of the drink-mixing gameplay makes it easier to vibe with the story and follow it without interruption, but on the other hand, it gets so repetitive so quickly. Despite unlocking new recipes drink modifiers as the game goes on, your patrons will almost always stick to their same usual favourites. A more challenging version of the drink mixing would make your bond with the patrons and the info and rumors they share with you feel so much more earned and meaningful.

Once you learn enough info or rumours from various patrons, you can piece them together and post an open quest on your taverns’ quest-board to let any of your patrons tackle the adventure. This also isn’t as difficult or open-ended as I would have liked. There isn’t a lot of variety or meaningful experimentation that goes into putting these quests, or the drinks your patrons need before tackling them, together. The idea of your interactions with your shop visitors culminating in these big quests is interesting, but it already lacks some oomph since you don’t get to witness the quests at all – the lack of challenge in putting them together makes the most impactful moments of the game fall a bit flat.

Still, there’s a lot of charm and wonderful world-building to Tavern Talk that make it a worthwhile experience despite a lack of gameplay depth. The game is full of diverse, interesting, and engaging characters, and even the patrons who I despised for their rancid vibes or twisted personalities made for really interesting interactions. The world needs more drink-mixing visual novels, and Tavern Talk is a welcome, if slightly flawed, addition to that niche subgenre.

We have two new videos for the remake of Silent Hill 2 from Konami which will be landing on 8th October. The first is almost all cut scenes and gives you an idea of the story of the game.

This second video is from footage from a preview event earlier this month in Japan. This is a preview build so may not be exactly the same as the final game, and the video focuses on the new features that are found in the game, as well as a decent look at combat which has also been enhanced. Just a quick note, the English captions are auto generated from the Japanese so they’re not perfect.

In development by Bloober Team, Silent Hill 2 is a big step up for the studio, but one that absolutely makes sense. They’re best known for their work on psychological horror games like Layers of Fear, Observer and The Medium. That experience will be vital when updating a game made and designed for the limitations of the PlayStation 2 hardware in 2001.

In terms of the core gameplay, Silent Hill 2 will most noticeably be transformed by a shift away from fixed cameras and tank controls to over-the-shoulder and a more modern control scheme, similar to the treatment that Capcom gave to their Resident Evil remakes.

Of course, there’s also a massive leap forward graphically, with Bloober Team tapping into Unreal Engine 5 and all the cutting edge technology that this features like Lumen for realistic lighting effects and Nanite for exceptionally detailed 3D modelling and texturing.

It had been a while since Silent Hill 2 was first announced back in 2022 – of course, it had been heavily rumoured for a good long time before then – but true to their word, it seems that development had been progressing smoothly in the time since then.

Silent Hill 2 will be released on 8th October 2024 for PC and PlayStation 5.

We’re really hurtling our way through the summer months, and Gamescom is now almost upon us, with the hordes of gamers and fans set to descend on Cologne next week.

Dom and I will be out there, going hands on with upcoming games, speaking to their creators, trying to churn out previews and, come the nighttime hours, demanding that bar staff serve Kölsch in larger glasses.

But what about the week that’s been? Let’s round up this week’s gaming news.

In the News This Week

• Dragon Age: The Veilguard October release date confirmed
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 gets delayed February 2025 release date
• Tango Gameworks is back as Krafton revives Hi-Fi Rush studio
• The Plucky Squire is leaping from the page on 17th September, and day one with PS Plus Extra
• nDreams announce Vendetta Forever for PSVR 2 and Quest
• Curate quirky exhibits in Two Point Museum, ‘coming soon’ to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC
• Surprise Arizona Sunshine Remake revives one of the best VR shooters this October
• Trombone Champ will glissando its way onto VR later this year
• Terminator: Survivors early access will now release in 2025

Games in Review & Featured Articles

Black Myth: Wukong was the biggest embargo drop of the week, but did it live up to the hype and expectation?

• Sam and Max: the Devil’s Playhouse Remastered – PS5, XSX|S, PS4, XBO NSW, PC – 9/10
• Black Myth: Wukong – PS5, PC – 6/10
• MTG Arena – Bloomburrow – PC, iOS, Android – 6/10

Dom also dished out a gaming accessory review:

• CRKD Nitro Deck+ – NSW – 8/10

Beyond the reviews, I dipped a toe back into VR with the PSVR 2 PC Adapter, and with Sony’s first party investment in the platform seemingly non-existent, this feels like the future of the headset. Also, I got to finally play Half-Life: Alyx.

Speaking of older games that I’m playing for the first time, I also got to sample the opening few hours of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, which is a much bigger deal than its title would suggest.

And Dom played the Early Access release Cataclismo, which is a really intriguing fusion of construction and defence.

Rounding things out as always, What We Played featured Kunitsu-Gami, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster and Black Myth: Wukong.

Trailer Park

Watch the 36 minutes STALKER 2 developer deep dive for another big gameplay reveal

Do your own stunts in Action Hero for Meta Quest 2 & 3

Your Achievements

Let’s check in on what you’ve been playing in the community:

• Andrewww helped his daughter play Bendy and the Ink Machine this week, which is “just the right type of scary for her age.” Speaking of scary, he’s off to watch Alien Romulus this weekend.

That’s the round up for this week. We’ll be back next week for more gaming news and more. See you then!

Fast Travel Games has revealed Action Hero for Meta Quest 2, 3 and Pro, an action-packed FPS that will throw you onto movie sets to battle ninjas, punch dinosaurs, and race along speeding trains.

The gameplay seems to take a leaf out of Superhot VR’s book, with everything happening in slow motion and then only speeding up as you, the player, physically move. It’s a clever way of helping to make things more manageable, and will no doubt be a pretty cool effect in this setting.

Action Hero will present you with five different movies to play through – so there’s no need for Fast Travel to concoct a story to explain how ninjas and dinosaurs are coexisting, as fun as that might be.

It’s coming soon exclusively for Meta Quest 2 and newer, which will no doubt be a bit of a disappointment for PSVR 2 diehards and PC VR enthusiasts.

The studio had a bunch of other announcements during the VR Games Showcase this week, confirming that they’re bringing CM Games’ Into The Radius to PSVR 2 next month.

They’re also bringing their hide-and-seek shooter Mannequin out of Early Access, with a full launch on Quest 3 and PC VR on 12th September.

And they’ll publish Smartmelon Games’ Rock Band-alike VR game Band Space later this year for Quest and PC VR.

HBO’s massive hit, The Last of Us, based on the PlayStation games of the same name is heading towards Season 2 which will launch sometime in 2025.

The new trailer gives us hints of what is to come with some shots mirroring scenes from The Last of Us Part 2 such as the Barn Dance in Jackson. The voice overs also suggest that some of the plot will of the tv show will also follow Part 2 of the game. However there are also new scenes such as Joel and Ellie in a wrecked train which could suggest not every plot point will be followed – I think you know the one I am talking about. There again the Joel scenes could be flashbacks, who knows.

We do know that Season 2 of the show will not include the full story of Part 2, the plan is for more than two seasons and to break up the story from the video game. This was revealed by co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin in an interview with GQ. When asked if The Last of Us season 2 would feature the entirety of the second game, Mazin said, “No. No way.” Druckmann added, “It’s more than one season”.

Would that mean a full run of three seasons or even four? Mazin said, “You have noted correctly that we will not say how many. But more than one is factually correct.”

Kaitlyn Dever will be playing Abby with Pedro Pascal returning as Joel, joined by Bella Ramsey’s Ellie. The cast also includes Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Jeffrey Wright as Isaac, and Ariela Barer as Mel.

Neil Druckmann has confirmed that while  The Last of Us 3 may not be in active development, he has a concept for the game that could tie the trilogy together. He admitted that for years he hadn’t been able to find that concept, “but recently that’s changed.”

I don’t have a story, but I do have that concept. That, to me, is as exciting as one, as exciting as two, is its own thing, yet has this through line for all 3. So it does feel like… there’s probably one more chapter to this story.

Source: YouTube

Nintendo has released a new video for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, showing off the world and gameplay of the first mainline series game to feature a playable Zelda. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is coming out for Nintendo Switch on 26th September 2024.

With a focus on exploring this latest iteration of Hyrule and how Zelda can get around with her new summoning abilities, the video takes us to the searing heat of Gerudo Desert, and the village of Gerudo tribe, and the Jabul Waters, which plays host to both the Sea Zora and River Zora, who don’t always get along. Kakariko Village is at the base of Eldin Volcano, but this has been transformed by the weird rifts that kicked this adventure into gear, and you’ll have to figure out how to reach the home of the Gorons. And finally, the Faron Wetlands are all kinds of leafy and play home to the Deku.

Echoes of Wisdom will throw plenty of side quests your way, such as tryiing to held an elderly man cheer up his wife with a flying plant, save someone from being trapped up a wall, gathering up Cuccos, and dealing with a… a Tornado Ghost?

You’ll be able to zip around the world using Waypoints as fast travel nodes on the map, but Zelda will also be able to ride a horse and hop up and over obstacles. All you need is to learn the Carrot echo and you’ll be able to summon a horse wherever you are.

Smoothies take the cooking of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and blend them into something a bit lighter, as you can combine gathered items to make smoothie combos. Electro Apple mixed with Floral Nectar, for example. You can also use outfits and accessories to enhance Zelda’s abilities, like Zora flippers improving her swimming.

Another ability was also revealed, in addition to the Echo summoning. For larger obstacles, Tri will help you with the power of Bind. This latches any object to Zelda’s movement, from a huge boulder to a half-buried chest, and even to summoned echoes, if you want to have an impromptu spiky shield. You can also reverse bond to map Zelda’s movement to other creatures and objects, switching back and forth.

Echoes of Wiszom borrows the visual style of the Link’s Awakening remake, which was a real highlight from a few years ago, which was already rather delightful, but will make for a real change in the series by having Zelda be the main playable character, using magical abilities and her wits, as opposed to combat in order to get ahead.

Capcom has released a trio of short explainer videos for Monster Hunter Wilds, the next game in the hit monster hunting series, showcasing both core gameplay fundamentals for the Seikret and Slinger, as well as the new Focus Mode.

Let’s start with the basic mechanics:

This video digs into the absolute basics, such as how hunter have both sheathed and drawn weapon states, with the former allowing faster movement and the use of items. It also shows off the Seikret, a new creature that you can mount and ride across the open world. The Seikret can also automatically follow the trail to get you to the target monster, and give you time to heal, sharpen your weapons and grab useful items and materials that you meander past. It also has a holster to let you swap between primary and secondary weapons.

Then there’s the Slinger, which is standard gear for hunters in Monster Hunter Wilds and will replace the Wirebug from Monster Hunter Rise. It can shoot out ammo gathered in the environment, and can grapple to draw in distant items (even while riding the Seikret), or interact with certain parts of the environment. Pretty handy!

Focus Mode is a new mechanic and combat technique, letting you aim your attacks and guards more precisely. They will now go in the direction the camera is facing, giving you more manual control. Focus Mode will highlight wounds on monsters, which you’ll then want to directly target to deal extra damage. It also enables Focus Strikes, which are particular special attacks.

And finally, there’s a look at the Great Sword, one of the many weapons that will feature in Monster Hunter Wilds. A series staple, this is at the slower, heavier end of the scale, but the weapon overview video shows how it can be used with hit-and-run tactics, can guard, and then how Focus Mode can deal massive damage.

Monster Hunter Wilds is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC in 2025. With two big trailers for the game shown so far – see them here and here – the next is expected to be released during Opening Night Live for Gamescom 2024 later this month.

A recent Sega trademark filing could point towards the title of the next game in the Yakuza franchise. According to Trademark Watch (spotted by our friends at Gematsu) the Sonic the Hedgehog publisher trademarked the name “Yakuza Wars” late last month.

Details on the next Yakuza game are pretty sparse for now, but with TGS 2024 fast approaching (taking place between the 26th and 29th of September) Sega is expected to make a new Yakuza reveal. What we do know is that the team at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio are teasing another surprise twist for the popular series, potentially introducing a new setting or protagonist, or maybe even shifting genre. The name “Yakuza Wars” suggests more of a strategic focus, perhaps allowing players to manage their own Yakuza clans, recruit famed gangsters, and war for territory.

When did Yakuza become so popular?

After years spent shrouded in obscurity, the Yakuza series witnessed a sudden burst of popularity among western gamers around a decade ago with the launch of Yakuza 0 and a much-requested English port of Yakuza 5. Sega was quick to harness this momentum, releasing “Kiwami” remasters of the first 2 games, which originally launched exclusively on PlayStation 2.

For the seventh mainline instalment, the developers decided on a drastic change of direction. Yakuza was known for its frenetic action-fuelled combat, immersive open world, and bizarre humour, but the team at RGG Studio wanted to change that formula. Not only did Yakuza 7 (titled “Yakuza: Like a Dragon” in western markets) introduce a new player character – Ichiban Kasuga – it featured traditional turn-based JRPG gameplay. This year’s sequel, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth would refine this new template but whether Sega will triple dip for the upcoming Yakuza Wars (or whatever the next Yakuza game will be called) is a mystery for now.

Looking to get into the series? There are a few good entry points with Yakuza 0 being a solid prequel for those wanting to kickstart the full Yakuza timeline. You can also skip ahead to Yakuza Kimawi which is a remaster of the first game or, if JRPGs are your thing, then Like a Dragon may be geared more towards your tastes.

The upcoming Amazon Prime series should also serve as a handy primer, though we’re not quite sure just how much it will deviate from the video games. That will be launching on October 24th.

There’s a minimalist approach to storytelling that a lot of metroidvania games traditionally take, letting their world speak for itself and typically telling the rest of the story through text boxes and an occasional character sprite. Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune aims for loftier narrative goals with a load of fully animated cutscenes that place the characters and their adventures on equal footing with the importance of the side-scrolling exploration and action. Unfortunately, these moments are so rough and shoddy that they ultimately bring an otherwise decent gaming experience down several notches.

Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune is a mish-mash of fantasy and sci-fi tropes run through an anime filter, and that grab bag honestly leads to some interesting ideas. Your protagonist is Erza, an Imperial Hunter aboard a cruising skyship heading to an unexplored region. Despite her calm & cool appearance, her introductory cutscene has her livestreaming from her bedroom about planet ecology to her fans and getting embarrassed when her dad shows up in the stream chat. Alongside her, you also get to play as minigun-wielding and Erza-obsessed fangirl Ciara as well as masked fighter Nia.

Hot-swapping between three playable characters at any time adds a lot of fun new layers to the metroidvania action that I was really impressed by. Each character has their own specialisation, and plenty of new weapons to equip and abilities to unlock that help diversify their playstyles even more.

I struggled to lose myself in the fun of these characters and the multi-biome sprawling map they explore, though, because of how frequently the game comes to a halt to dish out an unremarkable cutscene. While character models in Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune look fine enough from afar, they’re much less impressive to look at in dynamic, close-up cutscenes, and their animation is distractingly robotic. It’s hard enough to care about these moments when they look so rough, but a lot of the writing in them isn’t anything memorable either – for some players, the heavy reliance on goofy and fanservice-y anime tropes in these scenes won’t do them any favours either.

Lackluster cutscenes aside, there’s a comfortable, cheesy charm to Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune that I really do appreciate. Attack animations are far sharper than what you witness in story scenes, and while some of them lack weight or oomph, the sheer volley of wild particle effects and glowing projectiles that sputter out every time you land an attack or dish out a super move are just fun as hell.

Plus, the wealth of customisation in the game really helps make it worth seeing things through to the end – from equipment-enhancing orbs dropped by enemies to new abilities that grant access to locked parts of the map, and even a huge variety of costumes for each character, it always feels like you’re unlocking something new and shiny that helps keep your attention even through the lowest points of the game.

Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune isn’t setting a new bar for metroidvanias by any means – but it’s gaming comfort food that’ll feel easy to sink your teeth into if you’re a fan of that kind of atmosphere. Even the most patient of corny game enthusiasts will likely be put off by how frequent, unpolished, and often unskippable the cutscenes in this game are though.

Gavin Verhey’s Friday announcement of Mystery Booster 2 — the follow-up to one of 2019’s most sought-after products in the world of Magic: The Gathering (MTG) — came as a welcome surprise.

But what are Mystery Boosters, why are they so popular and are they coming to Magic Online or MTG Arena?

What are MTG Mystery Boosters

The original Mystery Booster was released in 2019 as a way of playing purely random Magic. Each pack contains 15 cards from a pool of 1694 cards of equal rarity.

That means you had equal chance to open a Mana Crypt or Rhystic Study as you did an Earth Elemental or Dead Reveller. Two of those cards are incredibly powerful (and expensive). Two of them are not.

But if you’re opening Mystery Booster, you’re not doing it for the monetary value — you’re either doing it to play purely random Magic or you’re doing it get your hands on one of those all new, sweet-looking Playtest Cards.

What are MTG Playtest Cards?

The brains behind Magic the Gathering test cards as they design them. Sometimes things get powered up or powered down. Sometimes they never see the light of day — they could be too powerful, too difficult to make work within the game’s rules or simply they’re just too silly.

The Mystery Booster Playtest Cards take this idea and brings it to the public to enjoy.

Stack of Paperwork, for example, changes the rules of the game to ‘put damage on the stack’ — a rule that was removed in 2010 to simplify the game and make certain decisions a lot more meaningful. Obviously, while this card will make the old guard laugh and look back with nostalgia, reintroducing that rule now would makes things a lot more difficult. As such, each Playtest Card comes with the following disclaimer at the bottom: “Test card — not for constructed play”.

But not all Playtest cards add wonky rules. One with Death simply kills you and Slivdrazi Monstrosity is so powerful it would simply get immediately banned. Personal Decoy would just be annoying to play against.

This theme continues in Mystery Booster 2, which bring a whole bunch of meme-y Playtest Cards for fans to enjoy. One new card even changes the rules on the spot so that you’re no longer playing best of three, but best of one.

Here's a card I think @bbrode might marvel at the potential of:#wotcstaff #mtgmystery pic.twitter.com/LhtkAu2Vaf

— Gavin Verhey (@GavinVerhey) August 3, 2024

It also brings white-border cards back and occasionally uses the Future Sight frame — treatments that different parts of the community will love.

Will Mystery Booster be on MTGO or MTG Arena?

The short answer is no.

The long answer is that there are a couple of issues holding Mystery Boosters back. First and foremost are the Playtest Cards. While they are great fun, their rule-bending nature means that while they’re perfectly intuitive to play in real life, the amount of coding required to get them to work properly on MTGO or Arena is probably just not worth the effort, as far as Wizards of the Coast (WotC) is concerned.

This is why we’ve never had the jokey ‘Un’ sets on either client. They’re great fun, but they fundamentally break the rules in ways that the game engine cannot cope with.

Since Playtest Cards are a big part of Mystery Boosters, putting everything expect those online would probably have people kicking off. But that’s not the only issue.

The second — and possibly bigger — issue is that WotC simply doesn’t want to put Mystery Boosters online.

WotC could conceivably add the boosters to MTGO without the Playtest Cards — since the set is all reprints, these cards are already all on the client. The issue is that these boosters were designed as convention-edition packs, to play in real life. They’re not even going to be available to buy in your local game store.

MB2 is meant to be a special experience for players at conventions. These will be at cons of all types (MagicCon and more!) long term, like MB1. There will be lots of it!

As an extension of the con experience, they'll also be in Festival in a Box, available online. #wotcstaff

— Gavin Verhey (@GavinVerhey) August 3, 2024

So while WotC could easily bring the cut-down booster to MTGO, it seems they just don’t want to.

As for Arena — a client with a much smaller, more controlled card pool — the idea of getting any sort of Mystery Booster is sadly a bridge too far.

This morning is yet another where we have woken up to the news that the far right continues to riot across the UK, and it is anxiety inducing. For the first time in my 35 years of life, I feel, like many other, unsettled in the country we call home. Disinformation, dishonesty, and dishonourable acts have led to the violent disorder perpetrated by a loud, violent, minority, and it is time that there is a reckoning against all of this.

Growing up, I was told by my family members who were born here in the 60s and 70s, of the violence they faced due to groups such as the National Front, and after decades of hard work to stamp this prejudice out and make our society more equal and equitable, it seems that we are sliding back to those dark times. To see the reports of the far-right and – let’s not beat around the bush here – of racists co-opting a tragedy as an excuse to attack anyone who is not white is disgusting and rage inducing. But we did not get here in a vacuum.

For years, we have seen traditional media, social media, and algorithm-led platforms pushing far-right figures to the fore on a regular basis. This is despite warnings from individuals and groups that doing so emboldens these figures and spreads their message. Challenging them in the social media space does not work, especially if some of those spaces are owned by those that agree with such views. I point to the traditional media groups, both broadcast and newspapers, that have have barely challenged far right talking points, and instead used them to validate their own messages instead. We have seen headlines from the likes of the Daily Mail and The Sun constantly attack those from non-white and non-Christian backgrounds, fuelling hate.  Even the likes of the BBC have not helped in this matter, platforming Nigel Farage a record 32 times on Question Time under the pretence of providing balanced opinions, while ITV featured him in I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, which might have made him seem more affable to some.

All of this has led to massive changes to our society, most significantly propelling us toward Brexit, and now in the most recent General Election, to Reform snatching 14% of the vote, and attracting members of the far-right to it in the process. Even now, reporting on the riots is still being framed as protest across the media landscape, conflating legitimate protest with actual violent disorder and thuggery. Every single reporter and editor in our media should have a frank and open discussion on how they report on issues that affect people from minority backgrounds, and how their reporting over the years has fuelled what has now happened, instead of acting surprised at the result. Will it happen? That is unlikely.

Our politicians have not helped either. Over the last 14 years, all we have really had is culture wars and divisive politics. Asylum seekers have been othered by the very highest of offices, and now are under violent attack. What is worse is a lot of this rhetoric has come from people who are from minority backgrounds, pandering to the far right for a grip on power. They think that moving even further right will get them in the top jobs again. The reality is that once the far right is done with them, they will be discarded and grouped in with the rest of us as an other. Social media is also to blame, allowing constant disinformation to spread faster than the truth and featuring algorithms that push far-right content. On my own Facebook feed I am constantly shown posts from such groups even though I am not a member of any of them, nor do I want to see them. Social media companies need to be held to account and disinformation needs to be stamped out at the source.

Reversing this trend will take a huge amount of effort, and our education system has a large role tackling the narrative that people from minority backgrounds are only recent arrivals to this country or that they are not British. The British Empire lasted hundreds of years and saw people from all over move across it. The first Indian MP elected to the UK Parliament was Dadabhai Naoroji in 1892, something that is not taught in schools. Britain has been quick to show pride that it was the leader in abolishing slavery, while not giving credence to folks like Ottobah Cugoano, Mary Prince, Olaudah Equiano, and Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, all of whom are Black Britons that lived during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Our education system skips over Empire, ignoring the hard truths that at one stage in this country’s history there was a huge dark period that saw millions suffer, while a few benefited.

We have to remember that the far-right is loud and often violent, but it is a minority. That lesson needs to especially be learned by those that platform them regularly. Even though they are a minority, the far right has to be guarded against and pushed back against over the long term. This morning I signed up as a member to ROTA – Race on the Agenda and Amnesty International Anti Racism Network, to better educate myself and to get involved in ways to counter the racism that perpetuates across our society. I would ask that, if you are tired of racism rearing its head again and again, you do the same.

A final thing in case any disinformation is spread by the far-right about me. My family settled in the UK 70 years ago. I was born and raised here. I work full time. I come from a Punjabi Sikh background. I am British.

Sins of a Solar Empire 2 will be available on Steam from August 15th, Stardock Games has announced. The game was originally an Epic Games Store exclusive, having released in October 2022. The Steam base version will be priced at $39.99 and the Premium Edition will be $79.99. The Premium edition of Sins of a Solar Empire 2 includes the base game, first Content Pass (4 DLC: 1 small, 1 medium, and 2 expansion level) and the Sins of a Solar Empire II soundtrack.

“It’s been amazing to see how hyped fans are for the release of Sins of a Solar Empire II on Steam,” said Brian Clair, Director of Publishing at Stardock Entertainment. “We have seen so many people who were fans of the original Sins, and Sins: Rebellion, sharing their excitement for this long-awaited sequel. Sins of a Solar Empire II will deliver epic galactic warfare and strategy to new players on Steam, and our existing players on Epic Games Store, as they will be continually supported with new content and updates. We can’t wait to share more with you and celebrate the launch of Sins of a Solar Empire II on August 15!”

Sins of a Solar Empire 2 contains three playable races which are Advent, Vasari, and TEC. Planets also follow their orbital paths which makes the maps dynamic and makes players have to change tactics on the fly. There are also minor factions dotted around that can be influenced and become allies. Capital ships can have a lot of augmentations to change the tide of battle, and within battles lasers and rockets can be deflected by shields. There is also a mod browser that allows players to easily install various mods.

Source: Press Release

We’re getting over the hump of the Olympics this weekend, and Team GB has been doing a generally fantastic job of picking medals through the first half. Oh sure, a few of those came from the horsey stuff (it’s still super strange that horse dancing is an event, right?), but we’ve also done pretty darn well in and on the water, with early biking events, triathlon, and more!

There’s always this kind of scepticism in the run up to the Olympics – invariably from the locals who fear being subjected to local travel and life disruption – but it’s followed by a swell of pride and joy as everyone gets to see their nation’s representatives compete, and this year is no different.

Anyway, on to the video games stuff.

In the News This Week

The end of the week brought the THQ Nordic Summer Showcase, with a good haul of new trailers and announcements, but the biggest and most depressing news came from Bungie’s mass layoffs.

• Bungie lays off 220 staff – Destiny spin-off cancelled and The Final Shape underperformed, but Bungie layoffs were always planned
• Car smashing sequel Wreckfest 2 has been announced
• Avowed gets new release date of February 18th 2025
• See the first gameplay trailer for Titan Quest 2
• Prison Architect 2 delayed indefinitely
• The Eternal Life of Goldman is a platformer with a wonderful ligne claire art style
• The Thing: Remastered artwork shown in developer deep dive
• Skydance Games and Plaion partner for Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra
• Zula Hendricks revealed as the protagonist for Alien: Rogue Incursion
• The PS Plus Monthly Games for August 2024 have been revealed

Games in Review & Featured Articles

It was a high-scoring week for reviews, as we all found games that we thoroughly enjoyed playing.

• SteamWorld Heist II – PS5, XSX|S, PS4, XBO, NSW, PC – 9/10
• F1 Manager 24 – PS5, XSX|S, PS4, XBO, NSW, PC – 8/10
• Earth Defense Force 6 – PS5, PS4, PC – 8/10
• Deadlink – PS5, XSX|S, PC – 8/10
• Thank Goodness You’re Here – PS5, PS4, NSW, PC, Mac – 7/10

Away from the reviews, Dom got to go hands on with Star Wars Outlaws and decided that, yes, this definitely feels like the open world Star Wars game we’ve been looking for.

Reu ventured into the latest Ace Attorney remasters, getting to play the Miles Edgeworth spin-off Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, one of which is coming to the West for the first time.

And with the latest themed expansion for Magic: The Gathering, Nic took a look at the cutesy Bloomburrow and shared how best to get started with MTG Arena.

Rounding things out as always, What We Played featured SteamWorld Heist 2, EDF 6 & Thank Goodness You’re Here!

Trailer Park

Darksiders is coming back: watch the teaser now

Get a deep look at Gothic Remake’s world, gameplay and story

Slide into 15 minute of Planet Coaster 2 water parks and coaster changes

That’s the round up for this week. We’ll be back next week for more gaming news and more. See you then!

The shooter-MOBA hybrid that is Predecessor is moving from open beta to a full release on August 20th, Omeda Studios has confirmed. The idea for Predecessor game from the fall of Epic Games’ own MOBA, Paragon, building upon the ideas that were present in that game. Predecessor moved into open beta in March this year, with over a million people playing it.

During the open beta phase, Omeda Studios added Ranked mode, Brawl mode, and the two new heroes Terra and Aurora. There have also been balance fixes along with new skins added too. Predecessor has 35 playable characters each with their own abilities and skills. The game has also been developed in Unreal Engine 5, and supports cross-platform play. Skins can be purchased in the game using in game currency too. The key details are below.

• Truly Unique Gameplay – With the core of a MOBA but the mechanics of a third-person shooter/brawler, Predecessor offers a visceral experience that other MOBAs lack, while rewarding teamwork and strategy in a way many shooters overlook.
• Over 35 playable characters – Predecessor’s deep character roster contains over 30 unique Heroes with distinct play styles and abilities. 
• The Only Unreal Engine 5 MOBA – Created in Unreal Engine 5, Predecessor is the only MOBA to be developed in Unreal’s latest engine. This new state-of-the-art game engine produces high-resolution and high-fidelity graphics for current and previous gen consoles. 
• Play with Friends, No Matter Where They Are – Predecessor was developed with both console and PC gamers in mind with cross-play functionality so friends can play together regardless of their platform.
• Earnable In-Game Content – Predecessor features a ton of rewards, including custom skins, for players to earn or purchase with in-game currency. 

Source: Press Release

Ahead of its launch on August 7th, 11 bit Studios has announced some DLC for its creature saving exploration game Creatures of Ava. This DLC has been made with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation charity, and it will contain cosmetic backpack trinkets for the price of $2.99. All of the net proceeds from the DLC will be donated to the charity. The DLC will also be part of the Creatures of Ava Digital Deluxe Edition.

In Creatures of Ava, players take on the role of Vic who, along with her companion Tabitha, has crash landed on the planet Ava. The creatures on this planet are under threat from a danger known as The Withering, threatening all life on Ava. The gameplay consists of exploring four different biomes, solving puzzles, documenting creatures and saving them too. To help save these creatures, Vic learns musical melodies from the inhabitants of the planet, called the Naam, to tame the animals.

Creatures of Ava has been co-written by Rhianna Pratchett, and explores the themes of preservation, empathy, and making sacrifices. Creatures of Ava will be available from August 7th on PC and Xbox Series X|S.

Source: Press Release

Obsidian Entertainment’s action RPG Avowed will no longer be released in 2024, Microsoft has confirmed. Instead, the game has been pushed back to February 18th, 2025. The short reason given for the new release date is primarily due to the number of big games coming out in the second half of 2024. Instead, Microsoft has seemingly targeted a date which will be relatively quiet, allowing Avowed to get more attention.

Avowed takes us back to the Living Lands, a mysterious islands in the fantasy world of Eora, which it shares with Obsidian’s previous Pillars of Eternity games. However, where those games were both top-down CRPGs and part of the genre’s revival over the past decade, Avowed will shift back to one of Obsidian’s areas of expertise: first person action RPG adventuring. Avowed is not a fully open world game, but has several large open areas that you can explore. In that regard it might be comparable to one of Obsidian’s other acclaimed hits, The Outer Worlds. In the game, you’ll encounter NPCs who can join your party and accompany you on your quest, with the option to have two companions at your side. As an envoy of the Aedyr Empire, players are tasked with investigating a spiritual plague that endangers the world. Throughout the player journey, there will be opportunities to wield the power to either save or doom the world, utilising a combination of magical abilities, melee combat, and firearms.

When Avowed releases, it will be available day one on Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.

Source: Microsoft

It seems out of nowhere THQ Nordic and Gunfire Games have confirmed that a Darksiders game is in development, but outside of a teaser we do not know whether this is Darksiders 4, another spin off, a prequel, or a remake. You can see the teaser below, which gives very little away but it is sure to excite Darksiders fans.

The only clue given is the tagline, which is “Be Prepared to Ride Again.” That could point to either a sequel to the original Darksiders, carrying on from the final scene which saw the other Horsemen coming to join War. It also could allude to a remake of the first game, which did already get a remastered version when it was re-released as Darksiders Warmastered Edition back in 2016. It could be another game entirely, starring one of the other Horsemen. Darksiders II had Death as the main character, Darksiders III had Fury, and Darksiders Genesis saw War and Strife as the playable characters. Ideally, this will be Darksiders 4 which will see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse working together.

UPDATE: At the very end of the trailer you can see the words “Originally developed by Vigil Games” which does suggest this is yet another remake or remaster of Darksiders 1 or 2, or both.

Darksiders Genesis Review 

Darksiders Genesis was the last Darksiders game to release, launching in 2019. In our review, Dom said, “Despite the fundamental changes to the series’ viewpoint, Darksiders Genesis feels like a true Darksiders game, and banishes any memory of the lacklustre third entry.”

That third lacklustre entry, Darksiders III, got a 7/10 in our review. Thomas said, “Darksiders III, while more limited in scope than its predecessor, provides a tighter, more deliberate experience that elaborates on the lore we’ve seen so far. The smaller world of Darksiders 3 may disappoint some fans of the previous game, but this feels like a reboot of the series. Poor PC performance, a lack of side-objectives and some unimaginative world-design point to a game with ambitions bigger than its budget, but Darksiders III is a fun and challenging experience that kept me engaged across the length of its story.”

Source: YouTube

THQ Nordic and developer Bugbear has announced Wreckfest 2, a sequel to the hit demolition derby racing game. The game is in development for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, but not release date or window has been announced at this time.

The trailer for Wreckfest 2 features a mixture of in-game video and CGI, telling the story of a racer whose road rage led him to smash up his car a bit more than he’d intended. While it’s technically footage from gameplay, the in-engine action all comes from a rear-facing cockpit camera, making it pretty hard to see how the fundamental gameplay has been upgraded.

That will all come in due course. Bugbear has confirmed that this is a new ROMU engine for demolition physics and dynamic simulation, which looks to take the smash-happy racing to new levels. There’s also a brand new sound system, which they believe to be one of the very best and more accurate in a racing game.

A big new feature is the car customiser, which allows you to change colours per body part, add layered decals, but then also go deeper into making your car look like a bit of a wreck by painting on rust and body damage. I’m sure there’s going to be some great car liveries made in Wreckfest 2.

More broadly speaking, there will be the usual mixture of career, single player and multiplayer, challenges and regular content updates planned for after launch. Bugbear has also confirmed that modding support will be available, and that there will be split-screen.

Wreckfest was a smash hit when it first launched back in 2018, though we reviewed it for the original console launch, with a 9/10 Wreckfest review. We said, “Wreckfest is a surprising triumph in blending the best that sim and arcade racers have to offer in an explosive and visually gratifying package. A few visual issues and overly aggressive AI do little to spoil one of the best driving games of 2019.”

Bugbear gave the game years of support after that, including a big upgrade for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S that brought 60FPS racing to consoles.

This is the Police developer Weappy has announced their next, rather different game: The Eternal Life of Goldman. In development for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch and PC, it’s a platformer with a thoroughly lovely art style.

Set in a fantasy world that is torn asunder by mysterious forces, you play as the titular Goldman in a side-scrolling adventure. This older gentleman looks rather unassuming, but comes with an upgradeable cane that lends new ability after new ability to get around the world. A sturdy hook on the handle lets Goldman latch onto balloons with rings or pull certain objects around, while the bouncy shaft turns the cane into a pogo stick, which can be souped up to ping him higher into the air as well. There’s further abilities like a laser pointer and a globe aura that Goldman can emit.

The island that Goldman fights to save is filled with creatures and elements inspired by ancient fairytales and fables, with Weappy drawing upon Greek, Jewish, Mesopotamian tales. The narrative will have a bit of an existential twist to it, questioning life and death… but there’s also just some great looking boss battles featured in the trailer.

The Eternal Life of Goldman comes with a classic hand-drawn and animated visual style. The intention is to capture some of the lustre of classic 16-bit platformers, but with modern fidelity. Weappy take great pains to state that there’s no generative AI used in the making of this game. Everything is hand drawn – we clarified that it’s mostly by hand and mostly in digital form, but with many pieces starting as physical sketches – inspired by the traditional ligne claire style made famous by Hergé’s Tintin adventures, and the game uses classic frame-by-frame animation techniques.

This is one I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more of, and THQ will be featuring the game at Gamescom later this month.

A good look at the world, story and gameplay of the Gothic Remake has been shared during this THQ Nordic Summer Showcase, exploring the ways that this is both faithful to and an improvement upon the cult classic 2001 RPG.

Featuring clips of gameplay and other in-game shots, there’s a good four minutes of footage in the trailer, as THQ and developer Alkimia Interactive explore the various facets of the game that they are rebuilding from the ground up.

Set in a medieval fantasy where the Kingdom of Myrtana is fighting a war against Orcs, the king has made a desperate move to send any and all criminals to the Valley of Mines to extract magical ore that can be used to construct powerful weapons. Trying to seal the valley with a magical dome, the spell goes wrong, permanently sealing the valley, giving the convicts a chance to rapidly take control. Now there are three camps and ways of thinking, the Old Camp, New Camp and the Sleeper (who worship a mysterious new swamp deity), and you’ll have to decide which team to side with.

The world is key to the RPG with daily cycles for its inhabitants, while you’re given the freedom to explore and tackle the unfolding story as you see fit, taking on quests to earn respect, but then having freedom to complete them how you see fit. The combat remains slow and methodical, with melee, bow and arrow, and arcana all available to you.

As a remake of such a beloved title, Alkimia is retaining everything that was there in the original, but expanding on the world to tell new stories and grow existing ones. More diverse NPC routines and actions will be built into the setting, and there’s new places to explore, thanks in part to swimming, diving and the new climbing ability improving how you can get around.

Combat controls have been modernised, while still aiming to be tactical and slow paced, while there’s also more complex crafting and character progression systems. The UI is generally kept to a minimum to keep players immersed in the world.

Gothic has been in the works for quite some time. It was greenlit off the back of some canny marketing by THQ Nordic, first commissioning a playable teaser that was made and released in 2019 to show what a Gothic remake might be able to offer, and then gathering what ended up being “unambiguous feedback” from fans. Off the back of this, they founded Alkimia Interactive in Barcelona specifically for the remake, and they’ve been plugging away at it ever since.

There’s obviously some real progress being made, but there’s still no sign of a release date, so I expect we’ll be back here again at THQ Nordic’s summer showcase in 2025?

The first gameplay for Titan Quest 2 has been showcased by THQ Nordic and developer Grimlore Games, revealing how the sequel to the 2006 action RPG will look on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC… but stopping short of giving a release date.

Announced this time last year, Titan Quest 2 will be a true action RPG in the same vein as the original Titan Quest and the genre’s dominant series, Diablo. Still set within ancient Greek mythology, the game will feature its adventuring within picturesque open world environments, while battling everything from the Stymphalian birds to giant crabs.

Grimlore Games has been crafting the game with hand-composed enemies encounters, designing enemy types to have complimentary attacks and abilities, and then placing them together in ways that they can use actual tactics to come and have a go at you. Boss fights will then be unique encounters that challenge you with individual abilities and tactics.

You’ll have to create your own character class, almost, through the Masteries system and synergies. When creating your character, you’ll select two Masteries, with the abilities that these unlock potentially having synergies between them to give amplifying new effects to your attacks and powers. In the trailer it looked like the magic wielder was combining ice and lightning, I think.

Best known as the developers of SpellForce 3, Titan Quest 2 will be a slightly different challenge for Grimlore Games, and while it might not exactly be directly applicable here, why not look back on what they last made?

In our SpellForce 3 review, Gamoc said, “Spellforce 3 Reforced is a relatively successful combination of two genres. Though each of them separately might be a bit too simplified to please die hard fans of them, they complement each other well. They also tell an interesting story in a world that’s pretty interesting, even if it isn’t that novel. If you’re in need of an RTS/RPG on console, you could do much worse than Spellforce 3. If you’ve got a PC though, you’re probably better off playing on there.”

Frontier Developments has shared a 15 minute deep dive into Planet Coaster 2 and the new water parks that are the new star attraction in this them park management sequel.

Game Director Rich Newbold and Senior Executive Producer Adam Woods are on hand to give the demonstration, showing off a work-in-progress sandbox from a development build of the game.

They show off the geometric and custom shape pools you can make, the way that water flumes can be constructed – still balancing excitement, fear and nausea, just like the regular coasters – the new needs for things like changing rooms, wider concourses and more. Guests have also been redesigned to give more diversity of character models, broader animations to show how they’re feeling, and even the ability to get a nasty sunburn if you don’t supply sun screen for your guests!

Flat rides and coasters are obviously still very plentiful, and Frontier have made new rides and revamped previous ones. The humble teacups ride is now more plain to allow you to apply more customisations and themes, such as adding more of an underwater theme with scenery that can animate and move around with the ride. All rides will come with pre-defined, selectable patterns, too.

The next deep dive video will be exploring the new and the improved tools that players will get to use to create and manage these parks, so keep an eye out for that.

There’s plenty more on show in the deep dive, and we got a chance to preview the game ahead of its big announcement last month. I said, “It’s been a hot minute since Planet Coaster released back in 2016, and since the last expansion arrived in 2019. It’s high time to dive back in, and Planet Coaster 2 looks set to delight with its new options and deeper management.”

Planet Coaster 2 is coming out this autumn across PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Source: YouTube

Paradox Interactive has shared the unfortunate news that they have delayed the release of Prison Architect 2 indefinitely.

Prison Architect 2 had already been delayed a couple times, most recently aiming for 3rd September and with the announcement that the development was being handed over from original studio Double Eleven to new team at Kokku, but even that has been pulled back as they “re-assess the scope of the work needed to be done before the game is release-ready.”

There will be minimal communication about the game’s development through the coming weeks and months, until such a time that Kokku and Paradox feel ready to share something substantial.

Given the form of this delay, all pre-orders are being refunded automatically, though you will be able to request an expedited refund, as detailed in the FAQ.

It’s the latest blow to Paradox’s game line up. Cities: Skylines 2 launched last year to great dissatisfaction from players, with developer Colossal Order having now spent the better part of the year optimising the game and reworking gameplay elements. Last year’s The Lamplighters League also underperformed, and more recently, Paradox cancelled and shut down the studio behind their The Sims competitor, Life By You.

Here’s the Prison Architect 2 statement in full:

We have some difficult news to share: unfortunately, we will not release Prison Architect 2 on September 3rd because we need more time to improve both the game’s performance and its content. Our continuous internal reviews and beta test groups have highlighted areas that we need to focus on more, mainly performance and content, which we need to address before launch to ensure that you, the players, get a good experience in the game. We need to raise the quality a bit more to meet the standards we’d like to achieve with this sequel.

We are confident that the sequel to Prison Architect will be great, and we’re looking forward to showing you all the new ideas brought into it: the switch to 3D, multi-floors, and the new behavior system that all bring a new dimension to the game and open new gameplay possibilities for the players. However, we want to make sure the game lives up to the franchise’s legacy and is released in a state that satisfies both you, our players, and the Prison Architect 2 teams at Kokku and Paradox Interactive.

At this stage, we can’t commit to a new release date as we need to re-assess the scope of the work needed to be done before the game is release-ready. Over the next few months, we will focus on improving the game and building a more robust release timeline. This also means we will be limiting our communication with you all until we have a timeline we feel comfortable with.

With this indefinite delay, preorders on all platforms will be refunded, and the preorder items will be added to the base game.

This decision aligns with our commitment here at Paradox to reviewing and improving the quality of our released content. We are confident that delaying Prison Architect 2 is the best path forward for the game, allowing us more time to deliver a high-quality experience that honors the legacy of Prison Architect.

This is not the announcement we hoped to make, but it is necessary, as we believe this will result in a better game for you. Thank you for your patience, and we’ll see you again soon.

The Prison Architect 2 Team

Source: Paradox

It’s been a lovely, sunny week, and that’s meant that I’ve actually been outdoors, collecting Vitamin D to see me through the dark days (as in, the normal UK weather when you live up North). I have, however, played a chunk of Overwatch 2, loads of F1 Manager 24, Zenless Zone Zero, Cataclismo, and some more Elder Scrolls Online: The Gold Road, which is, unsurprisingly, something of a time sink.

Tuffcub has been playing Destiny 2, as per, and the very funny Thank Goodness You’re Here for review. Oh sure, it it doesn’t sound like much of a game, it sounds like I’m going to chortle my way through it, so I’m sold!

Nic B has been dipping his toe (paw?) back into MTG Arena with the release of its cutest set, Bloomburrow. Beyond that, it’s the usual: Monster Hunter Now!

Aran played Deadlink for review, saying, “It’s a fun roguelike arena shooter with a banging soundtrack.” He’s also been heading back in time though, “I’ve also played more Enslaved Odyssey to the West. I’m nearly at the end of the main story and then I’ll start the DLC.”

Chanting “EDF! EDF!” in his sleep has been Ade, who said in his waking hours that EDF 6 “is everything an Earth Defense Force fan could ever wish for.” He’s also been playing Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and seriously enjoying it. He says, “It’s the kind of creative and unique experimental game that I thought major publishers (other than Nintendo) just didn’t make any more. I’m so glad Capcom proved me wrong though, as Kunitsu-Gami is an absolute gem and proving to be one of my favourite games of the year so far.”

Miguel has been playing some Zenless Zone Zero, some Frontier Hunter, and Shadow Tower Abyss on the PS2! From Software’s weirdest and coolest pre-Souls game. Meanwhile, Gamoc has been playing Elden Ring, yet more Baldur’s Gate 3, and Mount and Blade Bannerlord, but the bigger challenge has been playing a game of telephone, trying to convince someone, anyone to come and install internet. Hopefully a chap will come along to sort that out today.

And finally, Tef handed in his review for SteamWorld Heist 2, and had a whale of a time with crew of submariner Steambots, taking on the game’s distinctive side-scrolling turn-based action. He’s also been out and about playing a much anticipated game… but sadly can’t tell us anything about that until later this month.

But what about you? What have you played?