Fine, that was slightly mean of me. There’s clearly at least fifteen people still playing Starfield, and Bethesda are today rewarding their commitment with a free buggy named the Rev-8. Today! It actually looks pretty nifty. With it, you’ll be able to hop, jump, and skip the tedious ballache that was hoofing it across the RPG’s needlessly large planets. Here’s a looksie:
Update: Oh, I missed this. "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." That's nice!
This seems like an odd one. I’m only tangentially familiar with the Dying Light games, but I was under the impression that the model here was releasing a single game, then updating and expanding it for years. Whether standalone adventure Dying Light: The Beast represents an attempt to course correct after Dying Light 2’s mixed reception, then, I’m not entirely sure. But if nothing else, it does share something in common with all the other adverts at Gamescom tonight: it is a game that exists, and will presumably be playable at some point.
If you relished the splashier gunfights of Cyberpunk 2077, like the sound of Doom meets Blade Runner, or wish you could jam your nose right into the neon trenches of Ruiner, you will likely enjoy the announcement trailer for Defect. It's a new "cyberpunk, squad-based, Immersive Objective Shooter" from emptyvessel, a team of erstwhile id Software, Call Of Duty and Naughty Dog folks.
Last week, Bethesda released a remastered edition of Doom and Doom II on Steam, with lots of extra episodes and improvements. One of these new features is a built-in browser for mods, and support for many existing mods that previously required a different version of the game. Basically, lots of good fan-made mods are now playable on the Steam version of ye olde Doom. That's neat! Ah, but there is some demon excrement on the health pack, so to speak. The mod browser lacks moderation and lets people upload the work of others with their own name pinned as the author. That's prompted one level designer to call it "a massive breach of trust and violation of norms the Doom community has done its best to hold to for those 30 years."
Fine, that was slightly mean of me. There’s clearly at least fifteen people still playing Starfield, and Bethesda are today rewarding their commitment with a free buggy named the Rev-8. Today! It actually looks pretty nifty. With it, you’ll be able to hop, jump, and skip the tedious ballache that was hoofing it across the RPG’s needlessly large planets. Here’s a looksie:
Update: Oh, I missed this. "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." That's nice!
This seems like an odd one. I’m only tangentially familiar with the Dying Light games, but I was under the impression that the model here was releasing a single game, then updating and expanding it for years. Whether standalone adventure Dying Light: The Beast represents an attempt to course correct after Dying Light 2’s mixed reception, then, I’m not entirely sure. But if nothing else, it does share something in common with all the other adverts at Gamescom tonight: it is a game that exists, and will presumably be playable at some point.
If you relished the splashier gunfights of Cyberpunk 2077, like the sound of Doom meets Blade Runner, or wish you could jam your nose right into the neon trenches of Ruiner, you will likely enjoy the announcement trailer for Defect. It's a new "cyberpunk, squad-based, Immersive Objective Shooter" from emptyvessel, a team of erstwhile id Software, Call Of Duty and Naughty Dog folks.
Last week, Bethesda released a remastered edition of Doom and Doom II on Steam, with lots of extra episodes and improvements. One of these new features is a built-in browser for mods, and support for many existing mods that previously required a different version of the game. Basically, lots of good fan-made mods are now playable on the Steam version of ye olde Doom. That's neat! Ah, but there is some demon excrement on the health pack, so to speak. The mod browser lacks moderation and lets people upload the work of others with their own name pinned as the author. That's prompted one level designer to call it "a massive breach of trust and violation of norms the Doom community has done its best to hold to for those 30 years."
The first Splitgate was a cracker mash-up of Halo multiplayer gunfights and Portal's nifty spacetime windows. It was a gimmick that made flanking fun again, at least until you died to a distant rifle that was right next to you all along. Its sequel, Splitgate 2 is continuing that gimmick but is also sprucing up the free-to-play arena shooter with a few modern additions, like bum-sliding around corners and big deployable bubbles called "time domes" that slow down your enemies yet speed up your allies. All this and more comes from a gameplay trailer that went up yesterday.
The first Splitgate was a cracker mash-up of Halo multiplayer gunfights and Portal's nifty spacetime windows. It was a gimmick that made flanking fun again, at least until you died to a distant rifle that was right next to you all along. Its sequel, Splitgate 2 is continuing that gimmick but is also sprucing up the free-to-play arena shooter with a few modern additions, like bum-sliding around corners and big deployable bubbles called "time domes" that slow down your enemies yet speed up your allies. All this and more comes from a gameplay trailer that went up yesterday.
With Valorant, Riot set out to integrate a bit of hero shooter into the Counter Strike template and made it a little more accessible than CS in the process. Now Mountaintop Studios, a new studio whose ranks include ex-Bungie and Respawn devs, have chucked themselves into the tactical FPS gauntlet with Spectre Divide. Made with input from former CS pro and streamer Shroud, it looks a bit like a mix of CS and Valorant, but has a big gimmick that sets it apart from the two: you can swap between two bodies. I… am cautiously optimistic? I think?
Hardened battle royalists will remember Caldera, the sandy island map of bunkers and palm trees in Call Of Duty: Warzone. It got shut down last year as Activision focused their efforts elsewhere, making the map unplayable. But you can now revisit those bullet-strewn beaches. In theory, anyway. Activision have released it as a 4GB open-source project that can be explored in a 3D model-viewing tool. That's cool. But among their reasons for doing so, there lies a predictably grubby logic: they want people to use the data to train AI.
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Edwin spotted this game called Beta Decay that's not got a release date yet or anything, but looks very cool. It's being developed by Rotoscope Studios and it's a low-poly, 90s-inspired mix of dystopian RPG, survival, third and first-person shooter, with some roguelike bits slapped in there, as well. Whew, that's a lot. Potentially too much. But hey, I am here for something ambitious and interesting, of which it ticks both boxes.
The immersive sim has seen a revival in recent years. Not only from larger studios like Arkane, keeping the faith alive with their time loops and space stations, but also from a bunch of smaller developers bravely exploring a typically ambitious genre. RPS has always had an affinity for these systemically luxuriant simulations, historically lauding the likes of the original Deus Ex as the best game ever made. But given everything that has come since, is that still the case? Only one way to find out: make a big list.
With Valorant, Riot set out to integrate a bit of hero shooter into the Counter Strike template and made it a little more accessible than CS in the process. Now Mountaintop Studios, a new studio whose ranks include ex-Bungie and Respawn devs, have chucked themselves into the tactical FPS gauntlet with Spectre Divide. Made with input from former CS pro and streamer Shroud, it looks a bit like a mix of CS and Valorant, but has a big gimmick that sets it apart from the two: you can swap between two bodies. I… am cautiously optimistic? I think?
Hardened battle royalists will remember Caldera, the sandy island map of bunkers and palm trees in Call Of Duty: Warzone. It got shut down last year as Activision focused their efforts elsewhere, making the map unplayable. But you can now revisit those bullet-strewn beaches. In theory, anyway. Activision have released it as a 4GB open-source project that can be explored in a 3D model-viewing tool. That's cool. But among their reasons for doing so, there lies a predictably grubby logic: they want people to use the data to train AI.
I've not played Counter- Strike 2 in yonks, but I know a big update when I see one. That's right: Valve have added some new crates just outside of counter-terrorist spawn, near bombsite A. This means that players can now use these boxes to hop from CT up to catwalk with little fuss, where previously you'd need to use your teammates' heads as a springboard. What does this mean as a layperson who sort of plays the game sometimes? More than you might think!
Edwin spotted this game called Beta Decay that's not got a release date yet or anything, but looks very cool. It's being developed by Rotoscope Studios and it's a low-poly, 90s-inspired mix of dystopian RPG, survival, third and first-person shooter, with some roguelike bits slapped in there, as well. Whew, that's a lot. Potentially too much. But hey, I am here for something ambitious and interesting, of which it ticks both boxes.
The immersive sim has seen a revival in recent years. Not only from larger studios like Arkane, keeping the faith alive with their time loops and space stations, but also from a bunch of smaller developers bravely exploring a typically ambitious genre. RPS has always had an affinity for these systemically luxuriant simulations, historically lauding the likes of the original Deus Ex as the best game ever made. But given everything that has come since, is that still the case? Only one way to find out: make a big list.
I've not played Counter- Strike 2 in yonks, but I know a big update when I see one. That's right: Valve have added some new crates just outside of counter-terrorist spawn, near bombsite A. This means that players can now use these boxes to hop from CT up to catwalk with little fuss, where previously you'd need to use your teammates' heads as a springboard. What does this mean as a layperson who sort of plays the game sometimes? More than you might think!
Ten years ago, we were drowning in early access survival games about chopping trees and crafting camp fires. Rust pit monstrous players against one another, DayZ had us dashing around for beans and bleach, while The Forest creeped us the hell out in a dark jungle. There was even a week-long celebration here at RPS called survival week to get the genre out of our systems. A lot of those games have since graduated to a full 1.0 release, but one survivalist shambled on. 7 Days To Die is a solid sandbox craft 'em up with zombie hordes, and it never left the comfort of its early access log cabin surrounded by spikes and land mines. But a (tentative) release date is finally on the horizon, according to the developers. And it's quite soon.
Phantom Line, the PVE co-op shooter formerly known as Hornet, has an early demo available until the 18th of June, 2024. It’s from Antistatic Studios, who include former Cyberpunk 2077, Bioshock, and Borderlands devs among their ranks. The FPS lets you and up to three great mates fill the ectoplasm-stained tactical boots worn by members of the ‘paranormal SWAT’, where you’ll explore large maps and try to contain strange goings on. You’ll need to join the game’s Discord if you want to play. Trailer below.
Ten years ago, we were drowning in early access survival games about chopping trees and crafting camp fires. Rust pit monstrous players against one another, DayZ had us dashing around for beans and bleach, while The Forest creeped us the hell out in a dark jungle. There was even a week-long celebration here at RPS called survival week to get the genre out of our systems. A lot of those games have since graduated to a full 1.0 release, but one survivalist shambled on. 7 Days To Die is a solid sandbox craft 'em up with zombie hordes, and it never left the comfort of its early access log cabin surrounded by spikes and land mines. But a (tentative) release date is finally on the horizon, according to the developers. And it's quite soon.
Phantom Line, the PVE co-op shooter formerly known as Hornet, has an early demo available until the 18th of June, 2024. It’s from Antistatic Studios, who include former Cyberpunk 2077, Bioshock, and Borderlands devs among their ranks. The FPS lets you and up to three great mates fill the ectoplasm-stained tactical boots worn by members of the ‘paranormal SWAT’, where you’ll explore large maps and try to contain strange goings on. You’ll need to join the game’s Discord if you want to play. Trailer below.
I Am Your Beast is a tactical, smack-tical, I hope this tree branch doesn’t crack-tical while I’m hopping off it to land on this dude’s back-tical FPS. It’s from Strange Scaffold, of El Paso, Elsewhere and Booked For The Week fame. It is a euphoric splurge of murderous game verbiage that has you chaining together thrown knives and solar plexus punches, headshots and tree-fu. Lob an empty pistol at your screen, and then replace it, because you’ll need it to watch the trailer below.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, the long-awaited sequel to the FPS that perhaps emanates the most shame in my backlog, has a new combat-focused trailer showing off the many dangers of the enigmatic Zone. You’ll also be pleased to know that the release date remains the same as the previous announcement: September 5th 2024, where it will be coming to Game Pass day one. Here’s the tray-tray:
Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, Indy’s upcoming FPS adventure game, has a new ‘Official Showcase Reveal’ trailer, officially showcasing and revealing basically nothing about the game except that it features some pretty and decently acted cutscenes, which we already knew from the previous reveal. It does have snow nazis in however, possibly the rarest flavour of Nazi after Cookies n’ Cream and Original. You’ll find the trailer below. Be careful: it’s official. Also, it’s mainly just one very long cutscene, so if you want to save that stuff for when the game’s out, maybe don’t bother.
We've known for a while that Starfield was getting its first expansion later this year, but tonight's Xbox Games Showcase gave us its first trailer. My main takeaway? That Bethesda are leaning into cosmic horror, as the trailer features landscapes that look like they're on the other side of an Oblivion gate than anything I saw during my time with Starfield.
DOOM: The Dark Ages is the next Bethesda Doom game, following DOOM 2016 and Doom: Eternal. It takes the FPS series back to a more civilised medieval age, where men and demon solved their disputes with throwable chainsaw shields, massive dragons, and guns that grind skulls at silly speeds then fire out the bone chips. Feast your face on the trailer below.
Door-and-peace-minus-the-peace FPS Anger Foot, the best game ever made, has finally got a release date: July 11th 2024. This is spectacular news, mainly because I’d already printed off a load of shirts that said ‘Anger Foot GOTY 2024.’ I was going to do some socks, too, but I do not trust this game anywhere near footwear.
Taking that famous quote from Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead, then sticking a ‘2’ on the end because that’s how sequels work, No More Room In Hell 2 is an eight player co-op horror from Chivalry 2 bods Torn Banner. It’s been teased for a while now, but now it’s got a release month: this October, 2024. Shamble hungrily toward the trailer below
Sonar Shock is a reminder that some of the best game concepts or settings seem so obvious as soon as you play them.
System Shock on an unreasonably huge submarine on an equally ludicrous trip around the Northeast Passage via Cape Agulhas? With a satirical Soviet setting that isn't just "lol russia" or "I think Stalker was about machismo and gun attachments"? And a third thing that I'll get to in a minute because this intro is getting out of control? God yes.
Whether or not they actually amount to anything, rumours of a new Doom have had me diving back into Doom Eternal recently. There’s at least one level in it that feels like essay-bait, so I’m obliging. The centerpiece of Mars Core - the FPS’ best level - is a comically massive superweapon called the BFG-10000. Oh, Chekov. If only you could see what we’ve done with your wisdom. The literary subtlety to gun-big-enough-to-scar-planets pipeline will eventually subsume all of pop culture, and those of us who chose to specialise writing about headshots will alternate between grins and tears from the wreckage.
Roguelike FPS Wild Bastards is the space western follow up to 2019’s Void Bastards. It takes some of that game’s ideas, mainly those related to shooty and looty, and reforms them into a largely different can o’ campfire beans. This time, it’s less focused on exploration, more on individual, tense shoot-outs. You collect a cast of weirdos, each with different guns and abilities, and form the deadliest dang posse this side of the last tactical overworld map you descision'd your way through. I like what I've played so far, although I think a lot is going to hinge on how much evolution the mid-game offers. As always, here’s a Steam demo, if you want to be all contrary and 'form your own opinions'. Pah.
I fear we may have swum the Rubicon of diminishing returns where multiplayer horror games inspired by Lethal Company are concerned. The recent Content Warning has sucked up all the remaining oxygen in the room, and oxygen is pretty important in Murky Divers, for reasons that are hopefully self-evident. Still, Murky Divers has some fairly eye-catching USPs. It's got underwater physics, of course, and it puts you and - unhelpfully - your friends in charge of a submarine.
There is a time for perfect clarity in a shooter, for clean walls and clear-cut character silhouettes. But this is not it. Retro first-person gunwaltzer Selaco is a messy machine gun dash through an office exploding with glass, concrete, splinters, and sparks. The glock-toting wreckage 'em up first hit our radar when it was announced as a modern combination of F.E.A.R. and Doom, promising both the fiendish AI enemies of the former and the satisfying blasting of the latter. Well, it's out today. Bursting forth into the corporate lobby of early access with uzis akimbo, peppering the walls with angry bullets. Good, I say.
Riot games have committed to a series of new measures to curtail harassment and hate-speech in the Valorant community. In a video entitled ‘Keeping Our Community Healthy // Dev Updates,” studio head Anna Donlon took to Xitter to outline the new measures for the competitive FPS. Below is a graphic detailing the changes, which include new penalties such as hardware bans for offenders, and an expanded role for the game's Voice Evaluation tech, which monitors chat for bad behaviour. “If you want to make evil statements under the guise of '[naughty word SEO doesn't like being in the first paragraph] talk', you aren't welcome here,” writes the official Valorant account.
Did I ever tell you about the time I was smuggling pears and USB-C cords through the Spanish Main? Was during the great USB-C shortage of 1687, you see. Apple had just released their new electric barnacle scrubber, and sailors everywhere were trading sacks of freshly minted coins just for a solitary sweet sniff at one of the delightfully compact and sleekly designed charger cables. Of course, too-many-toes Jackson and myself had seen tell of this upcoming gold rush, written in crab trails on the sand, which is what we had instead of the stock market in them days.
In one of the better gaming trends of the last few years, we appear to have entered a golden age for booting the crud out of doors. There’s Deathbulge of course, but also the upcoming Anger Foot, Abiotic Factor, and a load more I’m sure. There was also literally Door Kickers, but that was ages ago. Anyway, the latest game to put a hinge-disrespecting protagonist front and center is also my current obsession: the excellent Post Void/Hotline Miami-type beat, Mullet Mad Jack. It’s a very fast, very silly FPS about shooting robot billionaires that takes its aesthetic from 80’s anime and PC-98 games. I’m not sure what else you need, honestly.
You remember the ending of 2011's first-person bullethoser Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, right? Everyone does! A big man kills another big man with a gun but then - then! - a third big man kills that first big man with a rope. It's dramatic stuff. Well, a data-diving enthusiast of the CoDwars has discovered a cut ending from the original trilogy's closing chapter. It's a more downbeat and mysterious finale, featuring a shadowy figure whose identity is never revealed. Also, Captain Price, the hero of the franchise and aforementioned big man number three, drops his cigar with possibly mortal implications.
Old-school FPS adventure The Explorator contains much more intense shooty violence than the adorable lizardy folk that populate it might immediately suggest. I really want to use the word ‘zany’ without irony here to describe its hand-drawn 2D style and animations, but I’m afraid that ship has long since sailed into the sun. I’ll go with ‘caffeinated’ I think. Like the Adult Swim cartoons it reminded me of, it’s got a sense of the sardonic and a penchant for violence, but still comes from a place of having recently devoured several bowls of suspiciously colorful cereal. Anyways, forget all that. I mentioned an FPS in the title, so I must assume you’re here for the violence.
Mullets aren't just coming back into fashion, they're everywhere at the moment, adopted largely by lads who love draft beer and The Football. And seemingly by Mullet Mad Jack, the protagonist of a single-player roguelike FPS who would shove draft beers into the skull of a billionaire robot, then shoot him in the gonads. What I'm trying to say is, Mullet Mad Jack is fashionable and no-nonsense, which makes for a great hang if you'd like to burn some aggression once in a while.
ROBOBEAT is the third one of these new-fangled rhythm FPS games I’ve played - after BPM: Bullets Per Minute and Metal: Hellsinger - and the first one I’ve actually clicked with. The concept evidently appeals to me enough to try out those other two, but I guess that I’m simply too much of a rebel-maverick-disruptor to play to the stiflingly enforced rhythms of somebody else’s drum. Something about ROBOBEAT’s roguelike shooting feels different though.
“I like the look of Prey but I haven’t picked it up yet,” sounds the lament of the perma-wastrel, content to watch life’s most precious resource tick away then dissolve into the ether, never to return. “Looks good but it’s still 25 quid on Steam” sounds the cry of the fool unaware that all their possessions are but substanceless adornments to a life hollow for not having played, arguably, the only good video game ever made. “I didn’t like Prey anyway,” blowfish-ly puffs the deeply incorrect naysayer, unaware that they will never be invited to any of my birthday parties. Well, no excuses now*. Fanatical are doing a thing where you can buy FPS imsim Prey and two others from a respectable selection for a fiver.
Like us, you’re probably still reeling from Tuesday’s news that Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango and Prey’s Arkane Austin are getting shuttered by Microsoft. According to Bloomberg, these closures were just a part of a “widespread cost-cutting initiative” that’s still underway. All signs point towards more cuts to come, basically. ZeniMax studios seem to be the main target.
Confident design is one thing, but there is confidence, and then there’s the almost reckless certainty required in both your game’s sturdiness and the player’s curiosity to trust a feckless, glitch-hungry, poking-and-prodding player with Prey (2017)’s GLOO Cannon. Here is a first-person game set in a sprawling, multi-tiered, metroidvania-esque space station - one boasting multiple-bathroom verisimilitude - which then immediately gives the player a gun that lets them bypass the level gating by letting them make their own ladders up keycard-locked grav-elevators.
As I write this, Gray Zone Warfare is sat at fourth place in Steam's top sellers list. I've seen loads of vids from big FPS YouTubers pivoting to it as the next big thing, especially for the Escape From Tarkov-likers. So I gave it a whirl, both as someone who wanted to see what these more hardcore extraction shooters were like and to play a video game that worked. Unfortunately for me, the game barely functions on my rig to the point where it hurts my poor eyes.
Microsoft are shutting down multiple game studios including Redfall developers Arkane Austin and the creators of Hi-Fi Rush, Tango Gameworks. The news was delivered via an email to staff from Xbox boss Matt Booty which has since been seen by IGN. Booty calls the decision a "consolidation of our Bethesda studio teams, so that we can invest more deeply in our portfolio of games and new IP."
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