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Manor Lords too realistic or grimy for you? Try cosy survival townbuilder Diluvian Winds, out today
Manor Lords is obviously this week's big survival-citybuilder game release, but I suspect Diluvian Winds is more my pace. It's a "relaxing management game" about building a town for anthropomorp...
After ten years, Korean MMO ArcheAge is closing its European and North American servers
We haven't written much about Korean MMO ArcheAge since reviewing it nine years ago , and there won't be many future opportunities to write about it, either. Its developers have announced that i...
Bulletstorm and Outriders studio have cancelled development on a co-op action RPG
People Can Fly, the developers of Bulletstorm and Outriders, have cancelled development of a co-op action RPG codenamed Project Dagger. The Polish company informed investors of the decision to ca...
BlizzCon won't happen in 2024
BlizzCon, Blizzard's annual get-together for fans of their games, was halted by the pandemic in 2020 and only returned as a physical event last year. One year later, it is cancelled again, Blizza...
Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers is a gorgeous free SNES-style arcade racer, built using Doom Legacy
I never expected to feel genuine affection for Dr Robotnik, whose various level-ending wrecking balls and spiked doodads have killed me a million times over, but here I am sobbing like a banshee ...
In new open world game Lost Legions you are a Roman "rebuilding the empire" behind enemy lines
The announcement trailer for Lost Legions opens with a Roman Emperor bellowing “GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS” like a kid who’s just had his pudding taken away. I'd just had a big swig of coffee...
The Electronic Wireless Show podcast S3 Episode 16: the new hobbit life sim and our favourite The Lord Of The Rings games
This week saw the first (small) look at the new and upcoming Hobbit-themed cosy life sim Tales Of The Shire , plus the news that Embracer group is splitting into three, including a Middle-earth A...
Lethal Company is as much about protecting the mundane, as it is a horror game
I think the stronger your interest in white goods becomes, that's how you know you're transitioning from a youngster to a slightly oldster. The first thing I did recently when I stepped into my f...
Gorgeous interactive fiction Pine: A Story Of Loss is a small sad game about a big sad man
Pine: A Story Of Loss , which stars a bereaved woodworker and thus may be a play on the double meaning of ‘pine’, is a gorgeously animated interactive fiction game that sees you performing fa...
Inferni: Hope And Fear is an online co-op deckbuilding battle royale, if you were after such a thing
As genre mash-ups go, I didn't see this coming. But maybe I should have, knowing how once things like battle royales pop off, they will always spawn curious mutations. Inferni: Hope And Fear is ...
RPS Game Club Asks: What do you think of Lethal Company?
To keep the ball rolling with this month's Game Club pick, we're asking what you, the readers, think of Lethal Company ? By now, I can confidently say that the RPS team are scrap collecting ex...
Fallout 4's "next gen" update is out today and might break your mods - here's how to stop it
Fallout 4 's "next generation" update goes live today. Timed to capitalise on the Fallout TV show's mad popularity , it'll encumber the 2015-released open world wasteland RPG with widescreen a...
I have determined which Lethal Company monster is the hardest worker and should be hired
Most of my time in Lethal Company is full of tomfoolery, panicking, and ultimately letting the quota down. As I run back and forth from the ship, only able to carry four things at a time in my p...
SUDDEN DEATH is a free slice of interactive fiction about love, drugs, and Australian football
The closest I have come to having any interest in sport is when I got really into reading about football hooligans, or like, Blood Bowl, but I do absolutely recognise the romance of it all. SUDDE...
Aqua horror sim Barotrauma has an update that makes opiates "less of a solution for everything"
Alien-infested submarine sim Barotrauma has received a chunky update, bringing two new-ish monsters into its lethal aquatic world. The shrimp-looking Mantis may be recognisable to veterans (it o...
Assassin's Creed Mirage won't get story DLC, but the devs have "ideas on how we could extend the story of Basim"
As an Assassin's Creed girlie, I enjoyed Assassin's Creed Mirage , a pared down (but still big game, which is really just proof of how bloated AAA games have gotten, but I'll stop because it's no...
Paper Sky is a joyful flight sim for people who suck at flight sims, and there’s a demo out now
My experience with actual flight simulators typically amounts to approaching the runway far, far too quickly at far, far too perpendicular an angle, so perhaps I’m better off just flying folde...
Garry’s mod is removing “Nintendo Stuff” after takedown notices, but users suspect foul play from fraudsters
In a rare case of a wild Nintendo being spotted having somewhat of a point, actually, in regards to being protective over their IP, Facepunch announced yesterday that they’re removing all “Ni...
The next free Total War: Warhammer 3 update makes spreading Nurgle plagues even more rewarding
I can feel some kind of sore throat bug coming on. It must be the baleful influence of Creative Assembly's latest free update for bellowing strategy bonanza Total War: Warhammer 3 . Out 30th Ap...
PUBG, the game that Fortnite copied, copies Fortnite by bringing back the battle royale shooter’s original map
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds - aka the game that inspired and then was overtaken by Fortnite ’s Battle Royale mode - is seemingly borrowing a leaf from its cartoony cousin’s playbook by ...
Former Fable devs reveal a new co-op RPG, then announce its development is on hold amid layoffs
The developers behind Fable card game spin-off Fable Fortune and the digital adaptation of dungeon-crawling board game Gloomhaven have revealed a new upcoming co-op RPG … only to announce at...
GTA5 nearly had story DLC that made Trevor a 007-style spy - until it was cancelled and turned into a GTA Online heist
As a somewhat deflating example of the money-churning might of GTA Online becoming the sole focus of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 5 efforts over the last decade, the actor who played Trevor in...
Dark Souls would’ve been a better game in early access, s...ehind Dark Souls-like early access game No Rest For The Wicked
Dark Souls , one of the most widely acclaimed video games of the last two decades - perhaps all time - and progenitor of one of modern video gaming’s most influential and oft-copied-rarely-bett...
Should You Bother With... Hall effect keyboards?
Welcome back to Should You Bother With , the RPS hardware column that combs away the fluff surrounding PC gaming gear to reveal a smooth, hairless core of pure consumer advice. This time: Hall ef...
Another Crab's Treasure review: a playful Soulslike for everyone, especially if you like crabs
Lots of Soulslikes have about as much joy, and the same colour palette, as a burning cowpat. They are grim and dark and often have gimmicks that are a bit middling: mechanical arms that spew gun...
Sand Land review: a boring Mad Max lite that should have been very exciting
Sand Land is like a sanitised manga-ish Mad Max Fury Road, where there are fewer explosions and nobody huffs paint and screams "Witness me!". So, arguably, a less cool Mad Max. In this incarnati...
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Watching Civil War made me want more games with black and white stances on morality
I went to see Civil War this weekend. I liked a bunch of it, didn't like a bunch of it. One thing I thought was very obvious is that it sanitises its titular conflict of any political context. On...
Manor Lords early access review: a sturdy and immersive builder that feels incomplete yet alive with promise
When, in town building simulation Manor Lords , you erect your first manor, it feels natural to place it in the center of your humble 14th century European settlement. It presents as a locus of ...
Minecraft rolls out armadillo mob and rewilds biomes with eight new wolf variants
Armadillos, the grumpy pistachio nuts of the animal kingdom, have been added to Minecraft in a recent mob update. You can brush them to harvest "scutes", the boney armour plating of the animal'...
Lords Of The Fallen's latest update adds cruel modifiers that turn it into a roguelike
Lords Of The Fallen , an action RPG that was a mixture of fun and infuriating when it first launched, has received its final free update. It introduces the "Advanced Game Modifier System", which...
Steam says those hours you time criminals put in during advanced access now count toward the refund allowance
Players that put more than two hours into pre-purchased or advanced access games will now be exempt from Steam's refund policy, says Steam , the maker of said policy and thus the final word on ho...
The Don't Starve devs' new cutesy co-cop dungeon crawler is out in early access today
"If only you could talk to these creatures" is never more funny or true than in games like Rotwood , where you play cat people and orcs sent to biff snail worms and flies with scythes. From Klei ...
You can now pre-register for Genshin developer's Zenless Zone Zero
Zenless Zone Zero is the next action-RPG from Genshin Impact developers HoYoverse. Where Genshin is all Zelda-style pastoral greens, Zenless is an urban fantasy. It's expected to release sometim...
Strategy RPG Songs Of Conquest will hit 1.0 with a final campaign next month
Songs Of Conquest is a strategy-RPG with some of the most handsome pixel art around. Steam tells me I've played its Early Access release for 0.7 hours, which was long enough to know that I wante...
Against The Storm's 1.3 update is out now and it's one for the zoomers
Against The Storm 's latest update adds a a River Kelpie, a "legendary water demon" that can mesmerise villagers in your rain-slick settlements. I've been mesmerised myself by another part of the...
Fortnite will let you hide "confrontational" emotes, including the game's most popular
Royale-battler Fortnite will soon allow players to hide a handful of emotes the developers concede are "sometimes used in confrontational ways". This includes the emote reported as the most-used ...
EGX and MCM Comic Con are sharing a London venue this year
Stand by for a missive from RPS corporate parent ReedPop. Transmission begins! Ah, it's about gaming events. So, Reedpop's EGX expo and MCM Comic Con are joining forces. They'll both take place ...
Innkeep satisfies my craving for a fantasy game that's just a grim drudgery simulator
I'm the kind of awful person who looks at the background actors in TV shows and wonders what life is like for e.g. the old woman who sells birdfeed in Trafalgar Square in Mary Poppins when said u...
Latest Horizon Forbidden West PC patch finally fixes its weirdest issue
Nestled within a seemingly ho-hum patch for Horizon Forbidden West ’s PC edition is a change I’ve been crossing fingers and ritualistically sacrificing metal dinosaurs for since release. At ...
Sweet Transit is a loveable city builder for model train nerds, out of early access now
Afternoon, conveyor belt fans! Good news, I think I may have discovered the first genuinely cosy automation game. Attempts have been made at cosy automation and automated cosiness in the past �...
Hellish indie horror IRIS can get in the toaster and I’m sure the feeling is mutual
Sometimes, I hear critics describe something as ‘actively hostile’ to the act of playing it, but with something close to admiration in their voices. I've always felt that I, too, would like t...
The kissable frogs and sparky combat of Hades 2 looks set to bewitch fans
Were we to pluck up a passing stoat, or wandering pigeon, and inspect their entrails for omens as regards the quality of mythical roguelike Hades 2 , we would find ourselves covered in blood and ...
Arise now, ye Cerim: No Rest for the Wicked’s performance updates are underway
No Rest for the Wicked launched into early access as a bit of a fixer-upper , even by the standards of its 'buy now, play finished game later' model. The good news is that the grim action-RPG �...
The original Fallout is the perfect antidote to Fallout fever
Speaking to RPS regular Jeremy Peel in a new feature about RPG design, Amazon's Fallout TV show and his time working on Pentiment and Pillars of Eternity , Obsidian's Josh Sawyer has reflected a...
Lethal Company gets worse as you get better
So far, my main problem with Lethal Company – this month’s RPS Game Club game – is that I’m getting better at it. I’m more efficient at clearing up scrap, less prone to fear-spasming ...
ESA lawyer frets about some sort of terrifying ‘online arcade’ if preservation is made easier
Last week, a government hearing took place between representatives of the Video Game History Foundation , the Rhizome project, and the Software Preservation Network among others, with legal rep...
Metaphor: ReFantazio gets mega-trailer and October release date - good news, brawler-only parties are viable
As one of the Treehouse's resident Atlus sickos, I was incredibly happy to wake up to 25-minutes of Metaphor: ReFantazio 's director Katsura Hashino talking us through some new footage. We get a ...
Whatever the Fallout TV show does with New Vegas lore, Josh Sawyer doesn’t care: “It was never mine”
What’s it like to watch a smash hit TV show set in the backyard of a game you’ve made? It’s a question which Fallout: New Vegas project director Josh Sawyer is uniquely qualified to answer...
Cereballers is a free 2D football parody with a spark of real genius
I often regret that I didn't get into football as a kid (note for people across the pond: football is what we call soccer in these here accursed, eternally post-imperial isles). The trouble was, ...
StarCraft 2’s former lead multiplayer designer teases a new RTS he feels is a “paradigm shift” for the genre
The former multiplayer lead for RTS giant StarCraft 2 is working on a new real-time strategy game that he promises will mark a “paradigm shift” for the storied PC genre. Read more
The Fallout TV show’s popularity has blown up Nexus Mods as everyone rushes to play Fallout 4 again
The Fallout TV show effect continues. This time, it’s popular mod site Nexus Mods on the receiving end of the double-edged Shishkebab, as its servers struggle under the weight of people rushin...
WipEout and Skate co-creators tease a sci-fi sports game and roguelike strategy sim from their new studio
Former developers of futuristic racing classic WipEout - including the series’ co-creator - have formed a new studio with the co-creator of Skate to work on a new sci-fi sports game. Read m...
Uncover the Smoking Gun has you solve a murder mystery by interrogating ChatGPT-speaking suspects
Well, that didn’t take long. After tech demos from the likes of Nvidia inviting us to chat with NPCs whose entire conversations are generated by AI , it looks like the first game built wholly o...
First Tales of the Shire trailer reveals a life sim set in Tolkien's most Hobbity pastures
Perhaps you are fatigued by orcs and swords. Maybe you yearn for a simple life of bucolic betterment to recover from your addiction to spicy wedding bands but still fear to stray too far from you...
An English Haunting is still an Edwardian point-and-click Ghostbusters, and also out in May
At the end of last year I played the demo for An English Haunting and got very excited . I like horror that has a generally spooky, creeping dread vibe rather than being wall-to-wall cheap jumps...
Tales Of Kenzera: Zau review: a beautifully designed yet imprecise platforming adventure
Until I played Tales Of Kenzera: Zau I figured people had run out of ways to make original platformers , but an Afrofuturist story-in-a-story framing for a mythological platformer about healthy ...
Embracer will split into three companies, including Middle-earth & Friends
Famed mass-layoff-manufacturing corporation Embracer Group are dividing into three companies, which will be listed separately on Sweden’s stock exchange. Those companies are: Asmodee Group, wh...
Valheim's volcanic Ashlands update gets first proper trailer and breakdown
Valheim , the popular norse-inspired survival game , is set to get even deadlier and at least several percent more volcanic with its upcoming Ashlands biome. The new biome is due to enter public ...
A former Homeworld dev has made a free browser game that plays like an ultraviolent Office Space sequel
Rising Up is a free , sub-fifteen minute browser game that’s a bit like Streets of Rage, where you play a balding office worker and beat a giant scanner to death within the first 30 seconds. T...
Blue Prince is already the very best shapeshifting videogame house
I'm currently trying to find a new flat in London. This is not much fun, though it's a great opportunity to meet and bond with other would-be tenants over a shared, grinding resentment of landlo...
The Maw - 22nd-27th April 2024
Ugh, I do not have the energy to feed the Maw this week. Sometimes the creature manifests as a proper monstrosity, with B-movie prosthetics and sound effects, and sometimes, it's more of an... u...
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes review: a relaxed JRPG adventure with a few old school quirks, but even more pals
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is the spiritual successor to a classic JRPG called Suikoden, and it came to be thanks to a very successful Kickstarter campaign. As someone with little knowle...
The Sunday Papers
Sundays are for unsubscribing to the deluge of ‘Happy 4/20! Here’s 10% off’ emails I’ve gotten from every place I’ve ever bought CBD from in the past five years. Before I do so much cli...
Tinkerlands: A Shipwrecked Adventure is a free demo of 2D crafting and spider fights
I spend a portion of my every week surviving and crafting. And in the game, where the game is called Minecraft. I still have appetite left for Tinkerlands: A Shipwrecked Adventure, a demo that of...
Palestinian Relief Bundle includes indie classics (and hundreds more) for just $8
The Palestinian Relief Bundle on Itch.io contains 373 items for a minimum cost of $8. 213 of the items are are games, including greats such as Wandersong, A Short Hike and Coffee Talk. All proce...
No Rest For The Wicked's first hotfix addresses durability and repair cost complaints
No rest for No Rest For The Wicked 's developers, it seems. The punishing action-RPG launched in Steam Early Access last week with performance issues , among other issues, and Moon Studios have n...
Free Stars: Children Of Infinity, name-swapped sequel to Star Control 2, has tripled its crowdfunding goal
The sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters has more than tripled its Kickstarter funding goal in four days. Free Stars: Children Of Infinity, which is a sequel to the series formerly known as Star Control...
What are we all playing this weekend?
Friday was my final day at RPS , after ten years, so how come I'm posting this on Saturday morning? Reader dear, I'll let you in on a little trade secret: I do not wake everyone up at 7am to ask ...
Final Fantasy 14’s long-awaited graphics update in 7.0 will look better than the Dawntrail benchmark, Yoshi-P promises
Ahead of Final Fantasy 14 ’s next massive expansion, Dawntrail , arriving this summer, Square Enix recently put out a graphical benchmarking tool. Dawntrail’s benchmark is especially notewort...
Suikoden spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicles will get a sequel to ‘carry on the legacy’ of late creator
Eiyuden Chronicles, the RPG series that’s effectively a sequel-slash-spiritual successor to nineties and early noughties JRPG classic Suikoden , will continue with a sequel despite the death ...
Well, whaddya know, there’ll officially be a season two of Amazon’s very popular Fallout TV show
In the most unsurprising news you might read today: Amazon are going to make a second season to their very popular Fallout TV show. That means one more season until we get Liam Neeson , right? ...
Prison Architect 2 has been pushed from its already delayed release date next month all the way back to autumn
It seems that Prison Architect 2 is going method in its approach to launching the 3D sequel to the jailhouse management game , as - like its inmates - it just can’t seem to secure a solid rele...
No Rest for the Wicked’s PC performance suggests the wicked might be better off waiting
Lured like an unsatisfied sailor by the siren song of alleged performance woes , I’ve been giving No Rest for the Wicked a cursory benchmarkin’, and yes! The isometric ARPG does suffer from...
If I never write about video games ever again, let this be my final plea
When I tick the box telling your unwanted launcher to remember my password, make it remember my chuffing password. Read more
Piecing It Together gave me a timely little island of calm
It's been a while since I snuck my diary into a column, huh? Long-term readers might have discerned that I haven't been well for a very long time. I have various ailments, of which we all suff...
This amazing, surprising browser game shows the Internet can still be magical
What I like about browser games is that clicking on a word in this mundane piece of software could take you anywhere, to anything. For example, if you click on this link to the domain corru.obser...
Capcom plan to make Dragon's Dogma 2's dragonsplague less frequent, and more obvious
Capcom are working on another Dragon's Dogma 2 patch, and this one takes as its target the dreaded dragonsplague, which causes the game's AI-controlled pawns to go nuts and murder everybody, in...
What are ‘solvable’ games, and is being solvable a bad thing?
While trying to keep vaguely up on both games discourse and terminology over long periods of time, I frequently find myself noticing terms enter common usage, get used a bunch, then fall out of f...
Grow your very own grandpa in this wonderfully unpleasant little indie horror game
I don't remember much about my grandfathers anymore, only that they were once there and they loved me, and now they are gone. So if I were a small child with quarreling parents and I stumbled acr...
Stardew Valley gets yet another update, adding new mine layouts and ominous-sounding "fish frenzies"
It's starting to feel like ConcernedApe (aka Eric Barone) may in fact be a modern day Sisiphus, destined to work on Stardew Valley forever. Following on from the mega update of 1.6 a month ago , ...
This delightful fantasy immersive sim somehow snuck its merry way into Steam’s FPS fest
Neverlooted Dungeon is an rpg game in which you can shoot a crossbow from a first person perspective. This, I imagine, was the pitch it used when trying to blag its way past the thermodynamical...
Alice0 is leaving RPS, come and celebrate her work and make lamentation
We've suffered some body blows recently, but perhaps none will ever be as winding as the news I now deliver to you: Alice0 is leaving RPS. She recently celebrated 10 years here, so that should te...
What's it like adding a world to Star Wars? The Outlaws developers explain
Star Wars: Outlaws isn't just an open world retread of existing Star Wars locations, like Tatooine. It contains a whole new moon of developer Massive Entertainment's creation - Toshara, which ...
Fallout 76 has a hellish new area and Bethesda want you to nuke it
Timed perfectly off the back of the Fallout TV show's success, Fallout 76 players can start testing out Skyline Valley, a new woodland area in the game's upcoming major update. There's a new pub...
Cities: Skylines 2 devs apologise for "rushed" DLC, offer refunds, promise conciliatory fan summit
While Cities: Skylines 2 has made progress on the performance front , not everything about the troubled citybuilder is on the up. In fact, player reception to the recently released Beach Propert...
No Rest For The Wicked devs working on fixes for performance issues and progression loss bugs
No Rest For The Wicked, the top-down soulslike that released yesterday in Steam early access , is already seeing its fair share of performance and QOL issues, including instability, lack of keyb...
Boys will once again be boys in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, revealed today for 2024 release
Warhorse have revealed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, sequel to the 2018 open world action-RPG which you will likely remember for a couple of reasons: 1) its ostensibly faithful but inevitably s...
Balatro ‘95 perfects procrastination by modding the roguelike deckbuilder into classic Windows Solitaire
If you somehow haven’t fallen down the Balatro hole just yet, that slope is about to get a whole lot slippier. The mesmerising roguelike spin on poker is easy enough to lose an entire afterno...
Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut brings PlayStation trophies and friends to PC for the first time
Former PS4 hit Ghost of Tsushima is the next big PlayStation exclusive to make the leap to PC, and it’s bringing some extra PS-shaped features with it. The game’s Director’s Cut - represen...
Arma and DayZ makers’ free-to-play looter-shooter Vigor is coming to PC, half a decade after consoles
Despite military sim series Arma and its zombie survival spin-off DayZ having their de facto home on PC, developers Bohemia Interactive opted to snub us keyboard-and-mousers for their post-DayZ...
Braid's Anniversary Edition squeezes in one more delay, three years after it was first meant to arrive
The Anniversary Edition of Braid was originally announced almost four years ago, and originally meant to be out sometime in 2021. As such, the latest delay to Jonathan Blow’s time-rewinding pu...
Larian have two new games in the works, "fueled by the very same fire" as Baldur's Gate 3
Larian aren’t just not making Baldur’s Gate 4 – they’re treating Baldur’s Gate 3’s success as an opportunity to develop their own intellectual properties, with two new games in the ...
How you sign in to this site is changing slightly
As you may know, the network this site belongs to is for sale . To help us with our impending separation from the ReedPop business we are detaching some systems and services from the ReedPop br...
The Electronic Wireless Show podcast S3 Episode 15: everyone loves Fallout and the Fallout TV show
Here at the Electronic Wireless Show podcast we're nothing if not ready to jump on a bandwagon, and the hottest wagon in town right now is the Fallout TV show. We've watched varying amounts of A...
I spoke to an Nvidia AI NPC, and he mainly wanted to get me bladdered
If the purpose of a tech demo is to induce a flash of thinking "Hey that’s neat," then I’d be lying if I said Nvidia’s Covert Protocol – a playable showcase for their AI NPC tool, Avatar...
New Nancy Drew game Mystery Of The Seven Keys is out in May, thus making my life very slightly harder
The problem with deciding to play every single Nancy Drew mystery puzzle game for a column is that, because they have been coming out since the 90s, Her Interactive have built up enough steam t...
Morels 2 sure has a lot of unicorns, for a mushroom collection game
Friends, I have officially discovered another game I can play with my life partner, who regards most games with enormous suspicion and fatigue. That game is Morels: The Hunt 2, released this week...
Shadow-hopping platformer Schim emerges into the light in July
If you'll be hiding from the sweltering sun in July (I say, daring the fates to try to spite me by delivering a cracking summer), good news: you won't be the only shadow-dweller. The fascinating ...
1000xResist is a time travel story inspired by Star Trek, the pandemic and immigrant trauma
1000xResist , from Vancouver-based sunset visitor 斜陽過客, is one of those high-concept sci-fi yarns that easily unravels into a million, bewildering threads of ambition and inspiration. Le...
Homeworld 3 DLC plans revealed alongside collector’s edition with model spaceships
Blackbird Interactive, the team behind upcoming strategy game Homeworld 3 , have released details on both the planned roadmap and the game’s chunky-looking collector’s edition, ahead of the ...