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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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’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!

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.

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.

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!

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?

The Earth Defense Force series has always embraced the inherit silliness of its alien-blasting premise – any action game that prioritises singing alongside gunplay, definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously. For EDF 6, that embrace has become an aggressive yet surprisingly tender cuddle, and it is, without doubt, the most bombastically bonkers and brilliant EDF yet.

For those who have never played an EDF game before, the set-up is simple enough. You and your team of fellow players (four players online or two via local split-screen) must shoot your way through each level from a third-person perspective, clearing the mountains, cityscapes, and fields of their alien invaders. Foes are many and varied, from hordes of giant ants to armoured gun-toting anthropomorphic frogs and swarms of deadly flying drones. Levels are fairly small environments and can be played in no more than fifteen minutes, ensuring the pace of the game is fast, frenetic, and highly addictive, not least because the combat is completely over-the-top explosive madness. Let’s face it, blowing an alien soldier through the side of a building with an enormous rocket and then seeing the rubble to collapse on their prone form will always be a delight.

There are four different player characters to choose from: an all-purpose Ranger, a flying jet-pack equipped Wing-Diver, a support-calling Air Raider, and a heavily armed and armoured Fencer. There have been a few tweaks made to each class, though nothing earth-shaking. Rangers continue to be the best all-rounder, their ability to deploy more vehicles to drive is a welcome addition. Wing-Divers meanwhile have a far more generous energy meter from the offset, allowing the player to fly to the top of a tower and rain down laser beam hell on the enemy below. Air-Raiders now utilise drones to deploy most of their attacks, ensuring a huge amount of weapon and item variety for players prepared to take on the challenge of not using any proper guns. Finally, Fencers remain reliable in their four weapons totting combo, though with a notable improvement in manoeuvrability. In short, it’s the same set of characters that you know and love, just slightly better.

There are literally hundreds of weapons to choose from, giving almost impossible amounts of variety. Laser guns, grenades, bazookas, missile launchers, mech suits, EDF 6 has it all.  Of course, this being an EDF game, far too many of them are utter pants and will only ever be used once before being discarded for a trusty shotgun. The trial-and-error approach is all part of the fun, as is bringing completely the wrong weapon for a level and being unable to kill any aliens – levels with unexpected flying creatures, I’m looking at you. Still, does it make me sound weird to say that I like all that stuff? That all this clunkiness adds to the very particular charm of an EDF game?

In fact, a huge part of the charm of Earth Defense Force is its slightly shonky quality. Whilst EDF 6 certainly makes the most of its generational leap – the armies of enemies you face are vast and screen-filling in their numbers and the draw-distance goes for miles – it also retains the ramshackle look that so appeals to the franchise’s ardent fanbase. Take the graphical detail as an example, though the visuals are far more polished, a few frames of animation are still missing from each player character and enemy model, keeping the B-movie-inspired aesthetic from previous games.

That’s not to say that a whole host of improvements haven’t been made elsewhere, because they have. Vehicles, the bane of a player’s existence in EDF 5, have been drastically improved. It may not sound like much to those who aren’t devoted members of the force, but bikes, tanks, and helicopters are now actually controllable. In the last game, daring to clamber atop a motorbike would be met with shame-faced hilarity as you immediately skidded out of control and embedded yourself in a skyscraper. Meanwhile, helicopters would crash as soon as you even thought about steering them. In EDF 6 all these problems have been fixed, and I delighted in zooming around on my bike like an extra from Akira, shredding giant spiders with my twin machine guns before pirouetting away to make my escape in a cloud of dust. It’s glorious!

Player control has been sorted out too, with your avatar happily, and automatically, clambering over any obstacles they encounter, rendering those many moments your hulking soldier was trapped behind a particularly prominent piece of pavement a thing of the past.

Talking of the past, the time-travel-based Terminator 2-like plot is surprisingly decent and cram-packed with plenty of twists and turns. Sure, it is utter nonsense, but it is oddly compelling nonsense. However, it’s likely to be more meaningful to those who have played through EDF 5, for which EDF 6 is a direct continuation.

This direct sequel approach has given developer Sandlot a decent excuse to revisit levels and reuse art assets from the last game. Swathes of levels are lifted directly from EDF 5, though this time there are time-traveling aliens altering the time-space continuum to contend with. A level that you had previously played to death is suddenly turned on its head when enormous grenade-totting androids turn up. It has led to what is the biggest EDF yet, and true EDFers already know that 100% completion will involve playing through each level multiple times with every character anyway.

Ever thought to yourself that Ace Attorney, as a series, has far too much courtroom shenanigans and that the investigation segments felt bland and formulaic? Well, if you’re this very specific and hypothetical person, boy do I have the games for you: Ace Attorney Investigations Collection

The latest remastered game bundle, Ace Attorney Investigations Collection’s twinned games star fan favourite and cravat enthusiast Miles Edgeworth after the events of the third game in the main series, and they off with an investigation of several cases around an underground smuggling ring. As this is set in the same continuity of the main series, mainstays such as Dick Gumshoe return to support our prosecutor protagonist, with the addition of new characters such as the plucky “master thief” Kay Faraday.

Instead of trying to win a court case, the focus of the gameplay in each case is to unravel the mystery through a variety of investigative techniques. The simplest of these is exploring the crime scenes to gather evidence and talking to witnesses and your allies to uncover facts or questions about the case at hand. This evidence will then either take the form of tangible evidence or clue-like prompts, but more on those in a moment.

Some interactions with characters result in Rebuttals that see you hear a character’s testimony about the events, which can be a witness statement or a character’s opinion on what happened. You can press individual statements to garner more information, and then expose contradictions between what they say and the evidence by presenting the correct evidence. Do this successfully and you can garner more information and inch ever closer to the truth. Get it wrong and your little life bar in the top right takes a little hit while you regroup to try again.

If this sounds familiar to you that’s because it is essentially a cross examination from the main series right down to the similar aesthetic flair of the cut-ins focusing on the eyes. But, if it ain’t broke, does it really need fixing?

Where the Ace Attorney Investigations games deviate is with the Logic mechanic. As I mentioned, you gather a variety of clue-like prompts related to the case as you investigate, which often relate to elements of the case that stand out oddly or question other aspects of the facts. Using Logic, you can piece together two of these clues to gather new information, which is a clever little wrinkle on Ace Attorney’s gameplay.

Like the Rebuttals, you get a penalty for getting these links wrong, but it’s incredibly satisfying when you nail it. Also, some of them lead to that classic Ace Attorney mainstay of turning your thinking entirely on its head. The only criticism I have from the early cases I’ve been able to play for this preview is that these do tend to be a little easy to work out.

This criticism – in fact – I would extend to the whole experience so far. It might change as I go deeper into each game, but nothing I’ve seen so far hasn’t really been a challenge to get through. Though, I must admit, sometimes an easier game is hugely welcome.

A big thing for this release that I have made a concerted effort to check out is the revised visuals and sound. The collection has had new HD visuals of the characters created, and you can switch between the original sprites and these new models in the Options menu. To be honest, the sprites have held up well and I find the chibi-like style of the HD models a little off putting, but the option to switch between the styles is great.

The revised soundtrack is also pretty good and allows the same option to switch back and forth between it and the classic version for the discerning gentleman prosecutor. Also, this collection has the trimmings that these collections have generally had, such as a Gallery, but I’ve not delved too deeply into the bonus content here to avoid spoilers on how to receive the accolades for achieving specific criteria in the games.

At my current point in the games, this shaping up as another excellent collection from the Ace Attorney series, especially as it brings the first of the two games to the West for the first time. It’s also good to see Edgeworth display the discerning eye and quick wit that was only hinted at with a superb (but unevidenced) ego in the main series. I’m looking forward to getting deeper into the core mysteries of both Ace Attorney Investigations games and – hopefully – I’ll have more of a challenge getting to the truth of them.

As proudly individual as each game in the SteamWorld series is, sometimes you just want a good old fashioned sequel, a game that goes back over familiar ground and tries to make things bigger and better. With close to a decade since the original, it feels like high time that Thunderful return to one of their most popular entries with the side-scrolling turn-based action of SteamWorld Heist 2.

Where the first Heist was a space-faring jaunt in junky steampunk ships, SteamWorld Heist 2 throws you right into the midsts of a great ecological crisis threatening its watery world where boats and subs are the order of the day. Oh sure, it’s already just a fragment of a planet hurtling through space, but where now Steambots are struggling to find clean water, afflicting them with Rust, and there’s literally just one ship’s captain who’s got a hope of unpicking the mystery of what’s going on. Captain Leeway steps into the breach – no, not “Krakenbane” herself, but her son – or at least, he would do, but at the start of the game, he’s very much down on his luck, his inherited submarine having been confiscated and having lost his good arm for shooting.

So the game opens with an introductory mission with his last two trusty crew members embarking on an audacious mission to steal his submarine back, facing off against the Dieselbots of the Royal Navy to do so. This personal task successfully completed, and Captain Leeway is thrust into continuing his campaign against the Dieselbots, the mysteriously bony Rattlers, and trying to get to the bottom of what’s giving all the Steambots a nasty case of Rust – hint, it’s the salty water.

Just as before, SteamWorld Heist 2 is XCOM given the Flat Stanley treatment. Instead of commanding your handful of crew members through 3D spaces, you’ve got a side-on view of every combat location. It’s a nice and permissive kind of turn-based tactical battling though, letting you aim and shoot through the cover you’re hiding behind and past allies, through thinner gantry-like flooring, and using ricochets to hit enemies who are in cover themselves. And instead of aim being a percentage based roll of the dice, it’s more like Worms in that you have to line up your shot and then time it with the natural sway of the weapon – It helps greatly that one of your first characters is a sniper, which gives you a laser sight that even shows bullet bounces.

SteamWorld Heist 2 comes with a new Jobs system for classes, though, all dependent on which primary weapon is equipped. There’s no limitations to Job switching, and as soon as you’ve gained a level in one role, those skills can then be unlocked for another role by assigning Cogs. The Flanker and Brawler are easy to synergise, giving a melee character much enhanced movement, while you could turn your Sniper into a backline support with cover building and team healing abilities from the Engineer.

The deeper you get into the game, the more weapons and gear that you’ll earn, and there’s further avenues to upgrade your characters and roster as a whole. Higher levelled weapons will dish out more damage, and there’s also Epic weapons with special effects, like a sniper with electric discharge, or a crossbow for the Reaper instead of an SMG.

There’s some great nuances to explore here, especially as you need to make the very most of every advantage your get on higher difficulties, and there’s missions that will hew toward one style of play or another. Compared to the original, level layouts are now fixed, but with randomised cover and enemies, so you have much more repeatable experiences than the more broadly procedural levels of before. That leads to missions where, confronted with countless Rattler totems and a secondary objective not to destroy any of them yourself, you’ll need precision and minimal ricochets – it took me a few tries. And then there’s just stages that are designed for varying team sizes.

Another big area that SteamWorld Heist 2 improves upon is with everything between missions. Yes, there’s downtime at safe havens and bars, where you can rest up to get to the next day, shop for better gear and chat to NPCs – you’ll also get the luxurious vocal harmonies of the original songs by Steam Powered Giraffe stuck in your head – but then there’s the neat open world to sail around to get to each location, and enemy ships to battle.

The submarine is pretty weak to start off, but with weapon mounts to the side, front and top, as well as more unlockable slots for upgrades, it can become a pretty fierce little thing, capable of taking on enemy capital ships. That’s especially true because of how agile it is with responsive arcade handling, not to mention the upgrade to let you dive beneath the surface – where you’ll come to find other subs and mines. It’s a fun diversion between the sometimes gruelling battles.

By default, the game comes at you with the Experienced difficulty level, and through the opening regions, that’s pretty straightforward to handle. However, the Rattlers can really swarm you and levels often have enemy spawn points that make you scramble and rush just to survive – by the third or fourth region the difficulty had really stepped up a few notches. Thankfully the difficulty is customisable beyond the fistful of presets, and a checkpoint system mid-level lets you roll back up to two turns if you want to slap yourself for a dumb move or fluffed shot.

Sometimes a game doesn’t need an engrossing story or compelling main characters. Sometimes, you just want to go from virtual arena to virtual arena and take out enemies with an assortment of weapons, tools and abilities. This is what Deadlink offers. It is a roguelike first-person shooter set in a cyberpunk world where corporations are more powerful than governments, and have the violent means to hold onto that power. You are a brain in a jar that can be transferred to different combat shells, using their skills in a VR setting to test their capabilities against those corpo assets.

From the off, you can see Deadlink has a lot of depth to it. You’ll be repeating runs to earn experience and points, allowing you to unlock new skills and abilities while making progress across levels to unlock the other three ‘shells’ to shove your brain into. The default Soldier shell is not all it’s cracked up to be, and while it suits the first area it is the least fun to use. It comes equipped with a shotgun and rocket launcher, while the abilities include a rappel that can hook onto surfaces and enemies, and a Scrambler that marks and staggers foes. The Hunter shell is more entertaining to use, coming equipped with a Hand Cannon and Arc Cannon, as well as the translocator ability, which swaps your position with a normal enemy as well as marking and stunning them. The next shell is the Decoy which leaves behind a hologram that enemies target while you stay invisible for a bit, but it’s far from being the most fun to use.

That title goes to the Engineer, which comes equipped with a Gauss automatic rifle and a grenade launcher. The Engineer’s deeply enjoyable abilities include being able to deploy a turret, and use a wormlink that can link to enemies marking and incapacitating them. Finally, there’s the Juggernaut, armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a flak cannon, with a Graviton Punch ability which can destroy some enemies in one hit, and Stray Redirector which makes the shell invulnerable for a bit, but sacrifices movement speed. While I did experiment with all the shells, it was Engineer I kept going back to, though Hunter, Juggernaut, and Soldier all offered something different to enjoy.

The combat shells are just one small part of what Deadlink offers. Once you’ve selected your shell, you’ll eventually have three modes open up. The Campaign challenges you to move through four stages, each made up of rooms and with a boss waiting at the end. Time Attack offers courses that will test your reactions, and there’s the Extant Existence mode which is an unlimited wave mode, where you try to survive against enemies for as long as possible. Unlike many Roguelikes, the rooms themselves are set so you can learn enemy spawn patterns, but the challenge will always be different due to your implants. Implants and room transitions is where the Roguelike elements of Deadlink come in.

Deadlink’s implant system is the anchor of the Roguelike, making  you consider their strategies on every run. As you progress through each arena you may get the chance to equip an implant, or make adjustments to weapons and the shell. These can be anything from adding fire or toxic damage to your gun, making your abilities more powerful, or improving the amount of health and shield you have. You won’t know what implant will be offered so you really are coming up with your approach on the fly. The implants themselves have different tiers, and need different amounts of power, which you can see in the equip screen. Legendary implants require the most power as they offer the best advantages, for example, providing a combat drone to assist.

The power management is easy to figure out, as rows on menu show how much battery power is needed for a slot to be used. Furthermore, implants are split into active and passive. Active implants demand action being taken by you, like activating an ability, or breaking the C-balls that are floating around the arena, while passive implants are always on in the background. There are dozens of implants to find and unlock, with more being made available as you level up. I have to say, my best run came from having a majority of passive implants, as then I could just focus more on running and gunning.

The levelling up system has its own depth with upgrades available for individual shells, as well as general upgrades that improve health, shields, unlock new tiers of weapon mods, upgrades, and more permanent buffs or abilities, such as the defibrillator which will revive you once on a run. Some upgrades require experience points to unlock, while others require Turing Tokens, with the better ones requiring both. Experience is earned through playing the levels, while Turing Tokens can be found as one of the offers at the end of an arena, or through defeating bosses.

All of these in-depth systems of implants and levelling feed into the main experience. Deadlink only has four overall stages, split into combat arenas, but with the challenge you will not get past the first two, Tora and Watts, without significant experience and upgrades. The action is very fast paced, and you are almost always moving to avoid incoming attacks while firing off your own, but it does start to feel a bit repetitive as you go through the same levels trying to move further. There are no surprises waiting for you in the initial runs most of the time, though occasionally you will need to survive for 45 seconds, which isn’t a huge challenge, or break corrupt C-Balls. To unlock the higher difficulties you also need to complete runs on the lower difficulty, which does give something to aim for but also risks you burning out.

Star Wars Outlaws certainly has the weight of expectation behind it. The first truly open-world single player Star Wars game, it’s been shorn of the Skywalkers and Palpatines, and instead aims to give us a story that focuses on the criminal underworld of the galaxy far far away. I didn’t even see one lightsaber during my four hours with Outlaws, and it’s much more interesting to discover what this game is, rather than what it isn’t.

Star Wars Outlaws is set after Empire Strikes Back, which, as anyone knows, is peak Star Wars. The Empire still has a Force stranglehold on the galaxy, but inbetween the cracks, criminal syndicates are rising to power. Our hero Kay Vess, and her adorable companion Nix, dream of a life of freedom, and they’re convinced into taking part in a heist. It does not go well.

We hopped in early to Kay’s story, where she’s just crashed a very important and rare spaceship that she has… acquired. You’re now stuck on the planet of Toshara, an all-new creation designed collaboratively by Massive and Lucasfilm, adding to the Star Wars canon. Mirogana City is the capital of this attractive, Mediterranean-esque landscape, and it’s where you’ll run into plenty of new characters to run jobs for and stab in the back.

At the start of our demo we meet Waka, a worryingly helpful Rodeon who offers to fix up your newly trashed ship, sending us out to get parts from in and around Mirogana City, which just so happens to be the hub for the three major crime syndicates who’ve set up shop here. There’s the Empire knocking around too, and given that this is when they’re at the height of their power, it’s probably best to avoid them.

Mirogana City is a classic Star Wars dive of a place, a city built beneath, and within a mountain, leaving only the mountain’s peak and a core to hold it up. Beneath it is a grimy, deeply insalubrious place, filled with unsavoury characters, and just as George Lucas intended, it feels realistic and lived in. You’ll believe that you could turn a corner and run into Han Solo – and perhaps you will, as you can take on tasks from Jabba the Hutt – and that’s about as good as it could get.

Your first task is to make your way into Pyke underboss Gorak’s antechamber, and while there appear to be different ways you could do this in the main game, from buying your way in with a broker to bribing a technician to let you through an access hatch, here we snuck out way in utilising your Data Spike. Once there, it’s a short stay, as it turns out crime bosses don’t really like you sneaking into their back rooms…

The Data Spike, like every good unlocking device, utilises a mini game, with you having to listen to the rhythmic audio pattern and pressing the trigger in sync with it. If your rhythm sucks there’s a visual overlay you can add to help you out. It isn’t the cleanest of mechanisms, and four hours in I was still struggling to nail the timing. Still, it made it all the sweeter when I did. Kay also boasts a grappling hook for, well, grappling to things and a blaster for shooting stuff. The blaster has multiple mode types, with our demo allowing you access to both a destructive blaster or one that’s capable of stunning enemies. Nix, your constant companion, also offers some useful skills that every slightly shady bounty hunter will find useful, being capable of distracting or attacking guards, or accessing switches and devices that are out of Kay’s reach.

That’s far from Kay’s only skill, as she’s a pretty dab hand at slicing data from computers, with another mini game letting you feel fairly clever about yourself, by choosing from the correct combination of glyphs – or numbers if you prefer.

With a focus on lawlessness, reputation looks to be everything. Whether it’s the Pykes, Crimson Dawn, The Ashiga Clan or the Hutt Cartel you choose to work for, you’re going to have to balance out the jobs you do, and the way you do them. It’s fair to say that Outlaws will see you regularly switching sides, or angering another, and Kay has the Han Solo-esque moxy to get away with it. Or end up in carbonite. It’s hard to tell right now.

It’s not just the syndicates either, your reputation plays into how everyone else perceives you, including the different merchants you’ll find in the world. Depending on their affiliation you might get a better price if you’re on the up with their chosen group, or they might fleece you if you’re on the wrong side of things. If you sell them the right things, you just might improve how they think about you either way.

There’s so much to get involved in here, from the steadily growing number of places you can visit, areas to explore on the map, and then a host of different systems and bits of equipment to upgrade, including your ship.

Once you’ve repaired the Trailblazer – the opening of our demo saw it stuck firmly in the ground – you can shoot off into space, leaving the atmosphere and engaging in some space combat. The Trailblazer is certainly nippy enough, but there’s a lock-on here that makes shooting Tie Fighters out of the sky feel a little too easy. Hopefully, it’s something that can be tweaked before release, or that there’s difficulty levels let you customise the challenge.

The close of our time with Outlaws saw us hop a little way forward in the story, and a little further into that far, far away galaxy to arrive at Kijimi, in search of a safecracker. For anyone that’s seen The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, some of this may be sounding mildly familiar, but this is safecracking not codebreaking, so it’s absolutely different. Similarities aside, visiting a location we’ve seen in feature films just cements Outlaws’ place in the Star Wars universe, but ties it to the criminal underworld and shady dealings we’ve seen in The Mandalorian and Andor. Arguably, they’ve been the most interesting things out of Disney’s fairly scattershot approach to Star Wars, so, it’s a good thing.

Star Wars Outlaws pulls together a host of different inspirations when it comes to gameplay, with aspects of Ubisoft’s own Assassin’s Creed series nuzzling up to some Uncharted-style exploration and gunplay. These don’t feel disparate elements though, and I’m totally sold on Kay Vess as a central character, her array of rogueish skills, and the way the Star Wars universe is being brought to our screens by the teams at Massive and across Ubisoft. If you’re a Star Wars fan, Outlaws feels like the perfect video game representation of the seedier world we’ve found in Andor and The Mandalorian, and it continues to sow the idea that maybe, just maybe, we don’t need lightsabers to have a fun time.