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

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

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

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Dead Cells today has received its final major update, The End is Near, after seven years of development.

This will be the 35th update to the game, which has received a number of DLCs to expand gameplay and reference other popular games, from Castlevania to Hollow Knight.

The End is Near expands on the curse mechanic, with three new mobs, three new weapons, and three new mutations.

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

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

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

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Video gaming's premier horn honker, Trombone Champ, is bringing its comedic rhythm-tooting to virtual reality helmets - meaning PC, PlayStation VR 2, and Meta Quest players might want to pucker up in preparation for a vigorous tromboning session this autumn.

Trombone Champ: Unflattened, as the new VR version of the 2022 rhythm-action sensation is known, is one of the first official VR adaptations from Flat2VR Studios - the developer comprising of modders behind unofficial VR versions of games like Half-Life 2 and Doom.

Created in conjunction with original Trombone Champ developer Holy Wow Studios, Trombone Champ: Unflattened is set to feature more than 50 songs across its single-player campaign, with tracks including Ode to Joy, Sakura Sakura, God Save the King, and more.

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

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

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

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UPDATE 20/8/24: Well, there you go. Following last week's Deadline report, Amazon has officially unveiled Secret Level, a new "adult-animated anthology series featuring original stories set within the worlds of some of the most beloved video games".

It's a 15-episode series from the creators of Love, Death & Robots, and it'll feature stories inspired by Armored Core, Concord, Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, Warhammer 40,000, and a variety of PlayStation Studios games.

And if that takes your fancy, you'll be wanting to circle 10th December on your calendar - which is when the series arrives on Prime Video - then check out its teaser trailer below.

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One of the best roguelikes on PC is getting a farewell of sorts this week. Twitchy slashfest Dead Cells received its final major update, introducing new enemies, fresh weapons, and a few mutations. Unfortunately, all this new stuff is very cursed. In other words, it all toys with the game's "curse" status effect, a hex that causes you to be killed if you take even a single hit. You'll probably die a few times as a result of this update, which in some ways is a fitting finalé for this fast-paced jar smasher of a game. You can see the new features in the trailer below.

Read more

Vroom vroom. That is the sound of 11 rivals revving their engines as they blink the sweat out of their eyes and exhale years of self-doubt from their lungs. Today is their day. We have lined up these racing games on a starting grid and are interested to see how things shake out. Will the realism-obsessed driving sims take the lead with their sublime physics engines? Might the futuristic combat racers simply destroy the opposition with explosive rockets? Or perhaps a nippy arcade crowd-pleaser will soar to the finish line, propelled by the sound of roaring cheers. It's all to play for here at our incredibly messed-up grand prix with a worrying lack of rules or regulation. Start your engines, everyone, these are the 11 best racing games on PC. 3! 2! 1! ...

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The Crimson Diamond is a proper old-school style puzzle adventure. It's 2D pixel art, with a limited colour palette as in EGA games, and you control it with a text parser, like King's Quest or one of them other Sierra adventures old men like Graham remember. It's important to mention this up front because it's very possible that, despite The Crimson Diamond's tale of betrayal, murder, and mineral rights in 1914 Canada, the text parser element will be a Rubicon you instantly can't be arsed to cross. A not unreasonable stance - though I think the text parser in The Crimson Diamond is fantastic. Such beef that I have with this adventure game is down to the specificity required to solve some of the puzzles.

Read more

One of the best roguelikes on PC is getting a farewell of sorts this week. Twitchy slashfest Dead Cells received its final major update, introducing new enemies, fresh weapons, and a few mutations. Unfortunately, all this new stuff is very cursed. In other words, it all toys with the game's "curse" status effect, a hex that causes you to be killed if you take even a single hit. You'll probably die a few times as a result of this update, which in some ways is a fitting finalé for this fast-paced jar smasher of a game. You can see the new features in the trailer below.

Read more

Vroom vroom. That is the sound of 11 rivals revving their engines as they blink the sweat out of their eyes and exhale years of self-doubt from their lungs. Today is their day. We have lined up these racing games on a starting grid and are interested to see how things shake out. Will the realism-obsessed driving sims take the lead with their sublime physics engines? Might the futuristic combat racers simply destroy the opposition with explosive rockets? Or perhaps a nippy arcade crowd-pleaser will soar to the finish line, propelled by the sound of roaring cheers. It's all to play for here at our incredibly messed-up grand prix with a worrying lack of rules or regulation. Start your engines, everyone, these are the 11 best racing games on PC. 3! 2! 1! ...

Read more

The Crimson Diamond is a proper old-school style puzzle adventure. It's 2D pixel art, with a limited colour palette as in EGA games, and you control it with a text parser, like King's Quest or one of them other Sierra adventures old men like Graham remember. It's important to mention this up front because it's very possible that, despite The Crimson Diamond's tale of betrayal, murder, and mineral rights in 1914 Canada, the text parser element will be a Rubicon you instantly can't be arsed to cross. A not unreasonable stance - though I think the text parser in The Crimson Diamond is fantastic. Such beef that I have with this adventure game is down to the specificity required to solve some of the puzzles.

Read more

I'm not sure how funny Buster Keaton movies are these days - I assume there are moments that still work as pure gags. But these films of his remain wonderful, because Keaton was kind of the Tom Cruise of his age - or rather Cruise, who namechecks Keaton often in interviews - is the closest thing we have to the original. Keaton's gags were almost always stunts, dangerous, brilliant, clearly visual stunts that moved the action forward while giving audiences something to gasp at. There's nothing on the surface to make me think of the World of Goo games, and yet I think of Keaton constantly when I play.

Keaton's world moves. I think that's it. Its physics are dependable - and predictable, which is important for gags and for games - but the ground itself cannot be trusted. If Keaton's sat on a steamboat's wheel and he thinks he's safe, we know that wheel's going to start turning. If he's climbing a ladder, we know that the ladder itself will start sinking into the mud. What then? Keaton has to vamp - to make the moment work. He has to over-engineer things to create a sense of new stability. That's where you get the gag, where you get the fun.

This is everywhere in World of Goo. At the heart of the first game, which helped usher in the Indie era, and at the heart of the second, which has just arrived, bringing with it both new ideas and a lot of fond memories - at the heart of both you're dealing with treacherous foundations. These games are bridge builders at their simplest. (Granted, they never stay simple for very long.) You have a pile of black goo lumps, and you can extend the lumps outwards to create rudimentary frames. The goal for each level is a pipe you have to reach, which will suck in any remaining goo balls. So build upwards in a tower to a pipe that's lurking above you! Build outward as a bridge across a nasty gap.

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Humble Games' last release before the studio was "restructured" last week, Bõ: Path of the Teal Lotus, has launched a Patreon to support the game "in these uncertain times".

Writing on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, developer Squid Shock said that whilst it did not fault the team's work, Humble's changes "have meant we have missed out on critical post-launch support, which may put our studio's future at risk".

Although Humble has disputed the statements of former staff that characterised the layoffs as a shutdown, instead insisting laying off its staff is merely a "restructuring", Squid Shock also describes the changes as "shutting down".

Read more

Salt and Sanctuary, from Ska Studios, is a bit bloody good, serving up an enormously enjoyable, Dark Souls-inspired slice of 2D action-adventure. It's also now eight years old - but that hasn't stopped it from getting a surprise update this week, adding a tough new Randomiser mode.

Salt and Sanctuary, which initially released for PlayStation 4 and PC back in 2016, is a fairly explicit attempt to translate From Software's now oft-replicated dark fantasy RPG formula, complete with considered combat and corpse runs, into two dimensions. It begins on the shores of a vast and broodily enigmatic kingdom, which players - in the role of the Saltborn - must explore and overcome, tackling enemies and imposing bosses along the way.

It's good stuff, and not exactly a walk in the park, but it just got a whole lot tougher thanks to its new Randomiser mode. As detailed over on Steam, Salt and Sanctuary players looking to give themselves a real challenge can now select from three randomiser options: Item Randomiser, Monster Randomiser, and Scaling Monster Randomiser.

Read more

Nintendo's sales for Switch hardware and software have seen big declines as the console nears the end of its life.

In its latest earnings report, Nintendo stated a 46.3 percent decline year-on-year of console sales, while software has declined 41.3 percent year-on-year.

However, this is largely due to the huge success Nintendo had in 2023. The release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie "energised" game sales, while the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom boosted both software and hardware sales.

Read more

As another month draws to a close, PlayStation has announced the next slate of games coming to PS Plus Essential.

The three Essential games - which are available to all PlayStation Plus members - coming in August are:

This selection of games will arrive on 6th August, and be available to download until 2nd September.

Read more

Braid: Anniversary Edition has "sold like dog shit", according to its creator Jonathan Blow.

Blow regularly streams on Twitch and has discussed the sales performance of the Braid re-release on a number of occasions since its release in May.

YouTube channel Blow Fan has pieced together a montage of clips from Blow's streams (spotted by VGC), in which he bluntly shares his thoughts on the sales of Braid: Anniversary Edition.

Read more

Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus - the gorgeous 2.5D platformer with Metroidvania elements based on Japanese folklore - released earlier this month across PC and consoles. However, due to its partnership with Humble Games, developer Squid Shock says it has faced a number of unexpected stumbling blocks since release, notably with its console ports.

In a recent post shared on Steam, Squid Shock acknowledged the "unexpected changes" within Humble Games, after layoffs were confirmed at the indie publisher, and said it was still unsure what was happening next.

"This news caught us off guard, and we are still working to understand the full implications," the Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus team wrote on 25th July.

Read more

Thank Goodness You're Here opens with an advert for Peans ("Not quite peas, not quite beans, but something delicious in betweens") and finishes with a song. But developer Coal Supper's absurdist comedy adventure is so relentlessly, gleefully unpredictable throughout – so improbably overstuffed with impeccable gags and surreal detours – it's hard to know where to begin.

So let's play it safe and start at the beginning. You are the hero of the piece – a nameless man of indeterminate age and wilfully inconsistent height – who, as the adventure opens, is sent on a work trip to the fictitious Northern England town of Barnsworth for reasons never entirely clear. At which point, Thank Goodness You're Here immediately lets you know what kind of game it is by insisting you exit the boss' office by jumping out the ten-storey window instead of the door. Cue a note-perfect montage of mid-20th-century archival footage – all coal mines, red brick houses, and dour-faced ladies scouring busy market stalls – as bawdy ditty The Marrow Song plinks out, and away we go.

Without wanting to get ahead of myself, Thank Goodness You're Here is, I think, brilliant – a bold bit of masterfully orchestrated comedy that confounds expectations at every conceivable turn. Its very specific brand of surreal, anything-for-a-gag whimsy won't be to everyone's taste, but the way it merrily manipulates form to heighten its impeccable comedic rhythms is a true delight to behold – even if it takes a bit of time to show the method in its mayhem.

Read more

12 years after it first arrived on Steam, and 16 years after it debuted on Xbox Live Arcade, Castle Crashers is getting new DLC.

Premium DLC Painter Boss Paradise not only includes new player and weapon artwork for all official characters and new character Paint Junior, but it also adds Steam workshop functionality, so players can create and share their own skins "with the world".

Although Castle Crashers debuted on Xbox and is still available on Sony consoles and Nintendo Switch, the DLC is only coming to Steam.

Read more

NetherRealm has announced Mortal Kombat 1 DLC Khaos Reigns, which will expand the game's story campaign with an all-new cinematic narrative.

"When a perilous threat arrives from an alternate timeline, led by the ruthless Titan Havik whose sole mission is to throw the realms into khaos, Liu Kang must rally his champions and put faith in his enemies to defeat this grave danger," reads the official blurb. "If they fail, the New Era will be reduced to anarchy."

In addition, the Mortal Kombat 1 team has revealed its next Kombat Pack, which will provide players with more fighters to add to their roster. Upcoming fighters include returning kombatants Noob Saibot, voiced by Kaiji Tang; Cyrax, voiced by Enuka Okuma; and Sektor, voiced by Erika Ishii. These three all have "unique backstories as part of the reimagined Mortal Kombat 1 Universe". For example, Sektor and Cyrax are both women in this universe.

Read more

Every so often, the fine folk of Resetera take a break from their usual schedule of complaining that video games journalists get all their news from Resetera, and post a Thing Of Beauty. For example: it's thanks to Resetera member AstralSphere that I know about Alistair Aitcheson's Magic Box and BizHawk retro emulation tools, which - amongst other things - allow you to play old Sonic the Hedgehog games in giddy parallel, shuffling between them whenever you collect a ring.

Read more

Every so often, the fine folk of Resetera take a break from their usual schedule of complaining that video games journalists get all their news from Resetera, and post a Thing Of Beauty. For example: it's thanks to Resetera member AstralSphere that I know about Alistair Aitcheson's Magic Box and BizHawk retro emulation tools, which - amongst other things - allow you to play old Sonic the Hedgehog games in giddy parallel, shuffling between them whenever you collect a ring.

Read more

Salt and Sanctuary, from Ska Studios, is a bit bloody good, serving up an enormously enjoyable, Dark Souls-inspired slice of 2D action-adventure. It's also now eight years old - but that hasn't stopped it from getting a surprise update this week, adding a tough new Randomiser mode.

Salt and Sanctuary, which initially released for PlayStation 4 and PC back in 2016, is a fairly explicit attempt to translate From Software's now oft-replicated dark fantasy RPG formula, complete with considered combat and corpse runs, into two dimensions. It begins on the shores of a vast and broodily enigmatic kingdom, which players - in the role of the Saltborn - must explore and overcome, tackling enemies and imposing bosses along the way.

It's good stuff, and not exactly a walk in the park, but it just got a whole lot tougher thanks to its new Randomiser mode. As detailed over on Steam, Salt and Sanctuary players looking to give themselves a real challenge can now select from three randomiser options: Item Randomiser, Monster Randomiser, and Scaling Monster Randomiser.

Read more

Nintendo's sales for Switch hardware and software have seen big declines as the console nears the end of its life.

In its latest earnings report, Nintendo stated a 46.3 percent decline year-on-year of console sales, while software has declined 41.3 percent year-on-year.

However, this is largely due to the huge success Nintendo had in 2023. The release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie "energised" game sales, while the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom boosted both software and hardware sales.

Read more

As another month draws to a close, PlayStation has announced the next slate of games coming to PS Plus Essential.

The three Essential games - which are available to all PlayStation Plus members - coming in August are:

This selection of games will arrive on 6th August, and be available to download until 2nd September.

Read more

Braid: Anniversary Edition has "sold like dog shit", according to its creator Jonathan Blow.

Blow regularly streams on Twitch and has discussed the sales performance of the Braid re-release on a number of occasions since its release in May.

YouTube channel Blow Fan has pieced together a montage of clips from Blow's streams (spotted by VGC), in which he bluntly shares his thoughts on the sales of Braid: Anniversary Edition.

Read more

Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus - the gorgeous 2.5D platformer with Metroidvania elements based on Japanese folklore - released earlier this month across PC and consoles. However, due to its partnership with Humble Games, developer Squid Shock says it has faced a number of unexpected stumbling blocks since release, notably with its console ports.

In a recent post shared on Steam, Squid Shock acknowledged the "unexpected changes" within Humble Games, after layoffs were confirmed at the indie publisher, and said it was still unsure what was happening next.

"This news caught us off guard, and we are still working to understand the full implications," the Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus team wrote on 25th July.

Read more

Thank Goodness You're Here opens with an advert for Peans ("Not quite peas, not quite beans, but something delicious in betweens") and finishes with a song. But developer Coal Supper's absurdist comedy adventure is so relentlessly, gleefully unpredictable throughout – so improbably overstuffed with impeccable gags and surreal detours – it's hard to know where to begin.

So let's play it safe and start at the beginning. You are the hero of the piece – a nameless man of indeterminate age and wilfully inconsistent height – who, as the adventure opens, is sent on a work trip to the fictitious Northern England town of Barnsworth for reasons never entirely clear. At which point, Thank Goodness You're Here immediately lets you know what kind of game it is by insisting you exit the boss' office by jumping out the ten-storey window instead of the door. Cue a note-perfect montage of mid-20th-century archival footage – all coal mines, red brick houses, and dour-faced ladies scouring busy market stalls – as bawdy ditty The Marrow Song plinks out, and away we go.

Without wanting to get ahead of myself, Thank Goodness You're Here is, I think, brilliant – a bold bit of masterfully orchestrated comedy that confounds expectations at every conceivable turn. Its very specific brand of surreal, anything-for-a-gag whimsy won't be to everyone's taste, but the way it merrily manipulates form to heighten its impeccable comedic rhythms is a true delight to behold – even if it takes a bit of time to show the method in its mayhem.

Read more

12 years after it first arrived on Steam, and 16 years after it debuted on Xbox Live Arcade, Castle Crashers is getting new DLC.

Premium DLC Painter Boss Paradise not only includes new player and weapon artwork for all official characters and new character Paint Junior, but it also adds Steam workshop functionality, so players can create and share their own skins "with the world".

Although Castle Crashers debuted on Xbox and is still available on Sony consoles and Nintendo Switch, the DLC is only coming to Steam.

Read more

NetherRealm has announced Mortal Kombat 1 DLC Khaos Reigns, which will expand the game's story campaign with an all-new cinematic narrative.

"When a perilous threat arrives from an alternate timeline, led by the ruthless Titan Havik whose sole mission is to throw the realms into khaos, Liu Kang must rally his champions and put faith in his enemies to defeat this grave danger," reads the official blurb. "If they fail, the New Era will be reduced to anarchy."

In addition, the Mortal Kombat 1 team has revealed its next Kombat Pack, which will provide players with more fighters to add to their roster. Upcoming fighters include returning kombatants Noob Saibot, voiced by Kaiji Tang; Cyrax, voiced by Enuka Okuma; and Sektor, voiced by Erika Ishii. These three all have "unique backstories as part of the reimagined Mortal Kombat 1 Universe". For example, Sektor and Cyrax are both women in this universe.

Read more

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's a car in Gran Turismo 7.

Gran Turismo 7 players have flocked to social media to share examples of, uh, unusual driving physics after the racer's 1.49 update added a new setting that seemingly fills vehicles with helium.

Where developer Polyphony Digital had hoped to introduce "more natural weight" for players, cars are instead launching themselves into the air, making for some extraordinarily amusing clips:

Read more

I've never learned to drive, but every so often a well-meaning friend tells me I'd be good at it, because 'look, Edwin, you play all those driving games, surely they've taught you the basics'. Friend, here is what driving games have taught me: traffic lights are there for regional flavour; drifting is the same thing as cornering; other cars exist to serve as bumper cushions when overshooting a turn. Certainly, nobody wants a guy whose ideas about automobiles come from 2018's Wreckfest to be involved in the school run. On which note: THQ Nordic have just announced Wreckfest 2 - a fresh helping of destruction derby with fancified visuals and newly animate drivers who flinch and gesticulate when other drivers smash into them. Witness the carnage in the announcement trailer below.

Read more

The first World Of Goo was a cheerful parade of goopy engineering with a sense of never-ending novelty (well, never-ending for about four hours). Every level would introduce a new goo type or a twist on the basic bridge-building puzzle that challenged you to get a gaggle of gurgling balls to the nearest pipe. World Of Goo 2 pursues that sense of novelty with just as much twitchy eagerness as its predecessor, throwing new toys and goos at the player in an effort to keep you on your sludge-coated toes. That pursuit doesn't always result in pleasing new levels, though. There is a "hit and miss" feeling to things this time around. But those hits are hits. For anyone who has spent the last 16 years yearning for more sticky structure-building: I hope you like comically unpredictable fluids.

Read more

Braid: Anniversary Edition "sold like dog shit" according to creator Jonathan Blow.

Blow discussed the remasters sales performance across several Twitch streams since its release back in May, going so far as to suggest that the studio's "future is uncertain" as a result of low sales.

Read more

Katharine (RPS in peace) thought Dome Keeper's blend of tower defence and mining was both "meditative" and "perfectly formed" in her review. So it comes as great news, then, that the devs have somehow taken that perfect dome, expanded it and polished it to an even greater sheen. We're talking about new guild assignments, new gadgets, better world generation, a new world, new monsters. The list is enormous and designed expressly around improved replayability - take that, Las Vegas Dome.

Read more

British comedy is too often defined by its relationship to America: either as merely irony and sarcasm, which we're told Americans don't understand, or as a sprightly ideas factory for works such as The Office, which Americans can bless by re-making at scale.

Peel back the curtains of American cultural hegemony however and you may find the true pulsing core of British comedy that lies beneath: innuendo. No American network is in a bidding war to import Vic and Bob or remake Bottom, and Carry On and Benny Hill are assumed to be anachronisms in our modern times, but Thank Goodness You're Here! enters the conversation with a nudge and a wink. It's a cheeky 2-3 hour adventure through a small northern town, and it's here to educate the entire world of our nation's obsession with sausages and bare bottoms.

Read more

The story of Mortal Kombat games in recent years has been a mish-mash of double-crosses, weird friendships, and alternate dimension wobbles. They often feel like a casualty of Marvel movie bloat. Mortal Kombat 1 was marketed as a "reboot", for example, but is really just a continuation of previous nonsense, with developers NetherRealm saying "I don't know, stick a multiverse in it." Yet from that multiverse now arrives another bad guy, bringing new story chapters for the fighting game's first big expansion, as well as extra characters like the liquid metal murderer from Terminator 2, a Conan of the barbarian persuasion, and the masked killer of the Scream movies.

Read more

It's not often that a trailer release alone is enough to justify a post around here, but World Of Goo 2 ought to be bigger on everyone's radar. A sequel to one of the best games ever made ought to be cause for an international holiday. It's being released next Friday, on August 2nd, and the new trailer below will gloop your tower with glimpses fo the puzzling tower-building to be found therein.

Read more

I've never learned to drive, but every so often a well-meaning friend tells me I'd be good at it, because 'look, Edwin, you play all those driving games, surely they've taught you the basics'. Friend, here is what driving games have taught me: traffic lights are there for regional flavour; drifting is the same thing as cornering; other cars exist to serve as bumper cushions when overshooting a turn. Certainly, nobody wants a guy whose ideas about automobiles come from 2018's Wreckfest to be involved in the school run. On which note: THQ Nordic have just announced Wreckfest 2 - a fresh helping of destruction derby with fancified visuals and newly animate drivers who flinch and gesticulate when other drivers smash into them. Witness the carnage in the announcement trailer below.

Read more

The first World Of Goo was a cheerful parade of goopy engineering with a sense of never-ending novelty (well, never-ending for about four hours). Every level would introduce a new goo type or a twist on the basic bridge-building puzzle that challenged you to get a gaggle of gurgling balls to the nearest pipe. World Of Goo 2 pursues that sense of novelty with just as much twitchy eagerness as its predecessor, throwing new toys and goos at the player in an effort to keep you on your sludge-coated toes. That pursuit doesn't always result in pleasing new levels, though. There is a "hit and miss" feeling to things this time around. But those hits are hits. For anyone who has spent the last 16 years yearning for more sticky structure-building: I hope you like comically unpredictable fluids.

Read more

All 36 employees of Humble Games publishing have reportedly been laid off. According to business developer Nicola Kwan, staff were informed at 9am this morning, and told that “the company is shutting down.” Humble dispute this in a statement made to Game Developer, claiming that the publishing label is "undergoing restructuring," as opposed to a full shutdown.

Humble’s statement - which you can read in full here - attributes the events to “challenging economic times for indie game publishing,” saying that “Humble Games has made the difficult but necessary decision to restructure our operations.”

Read more

Between Against The Storms’ critters, Manor Lords’s perfect oxen, and now Cataclismo, Hooded Horse’s roster of strategy games share a common thread that many guard-the-village-em-ups can fatally overlook: they present a civilisation that’s worth protecting. Even if the fallen culture you’ll defend against waves of gribblies offers fascinatingly few concrete details on its origins, there’s a lithe and impressionistic otherworldliness and use of colour in Cataclismo’s art that evokes unearthed layers of history. Also, everyone is just so gosh darn likeable, with their foppish hats plopped atop stretched bodies, and dialogue that remains resolute, chirpy, and eager, even when you’re click-marching these poor folk straight to their deaths.

Still, none of this will stop me will sacrificing every last man, woman, and child of these beleaguered warriors if it means preserving a single one of my immaculately crafted staircases.

Read more

Braid: Anniversary Edition "sold like dog shit" according to creator Jonathan Blow.

Blow discussed the remasters sales performance across several Twitch streams since its release back in May, going so far as to suggest that the studio's "future is uncertain" as a result of low sales.

Read more

Katharine (RPS in peace) thought Dome Keeper's blend of tower defence and mining was both "meditative" and "perfectly formed" in her review. So it comes as great news, then, that the devs have somehow taken that perfect dome, expanded it and polished it to an even greater sheen. We're talking about new guild assignments, new gadgets, better world generation, a new world, new monsters. The list is enormous and designed expressly around improved replayability - take that, Las Vegas Dome.

Read more

British comedy is too often defined by its relationship to America: either as merely irony and sarcasm, which we're told Americans don't understand, or as a sprightly ideas factory for works such as The Office, which Americans can bless by re-making at scale.

Peel back the curtains of American cultural hegemony however and you may find the true pulsing core of British comedy that lies beneath: innuendo. No American network is in a bidding war to import Vic and Bob or remake Bottom, and Carry On and Benny Hill are assumed to be anachronisms in our modern times, but Thank Goodness You're Here! enters the conversation with a nudge and a wink. It's a cheeky 2-3 hour adventure through a small northern town, and it's here to educate the entire world of our nation's obsession with sausages and bare bottoms.

Read more

MultiVersus development studio Player First Games has been acquired by the game's publisher, Warner Bros. The studio's co-founders will continue to lead the studio. The platform figher's second season is due to go live tomorrow, adding a ranked mode and new characters Samurai Jack and Beetlejuice.

Read more

Heihachi Mishima, the mustachioed malevolence of the Tekken series, is going to be the next DLC character for Tekken 8. He was last seen with his loving son Kazuya, who threw him into a volcano. Of course, to be fully submerged in impossibly hot liquid rock is merely a long-running family prank for the cast of this 3D fighting game, sort of like forcing your granddad to do the ice bucket challenge, but with lava. Nobody truly expected the horn-haired headbutter to be fully removed from the series. But I am a little surprised to see him back so soon.

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The story of Mortal Kombat games in recent years has been a mish-mash of double-crosses, weird friendships, and alternate dimension wobbles. They often feel like a casualty of Marvel movie bloat. Mortal Kombat 1 was marketed as a "reboot", for example, but is really just a continuation of previous nonsense, with developers NetherRealm saying "I don't know, stick a multiverse in it." Yet from that multiverse now arrives another bad guy, bringing new story chapters for the fighting game's first big expansion, as well as extra characters like the liquid metal murderer from Terminator 2, a Conan of the barbarian persuasion, and the masked killer of the Scream movies.

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