A handful of Bandai Namco Europe games are headed to the GeForce Now cloud streaming service this week: Get Even, 11-11 Memories Retold, and Little Nightmares and its sequel. They're four of the seven games joining the service, and the full list also includes the multiplayer medieval melee, Mordhau.
]]>Amazon Studios are considering making Prime shows and films based on video games, signing a first-look deal with the production company currently planning adaptations of games including Disco Elysium and Life Is Strange. This will give Amazon the first opportunity to snap up anything DJ2 Entertainment might be making, if they want to. This is not, however, an announcement that Amazon will make these specific shows. These shows still might never get made, by anyone. But maybe it's enough of a step forwards for you to start daydreaming about what such shows could be?
]]>“What’s with all the meat everywhere, anyway?” my Death Trash alter ego Mildred asks. “It’s just there. Grows.” the meat merchant replies. “Maybe we’re living on a planet full of flesh and right now we’re standing on a crust of stone and dirt. So, do you want a piece of meat now?” I really don’t. But Mildred does. After all, this mystery meat is the main healing item in the game. It’s what keeps you and the world around you alive. It’s harvested from the ground like precious stones, the literal blood flowing in this grotesque world’s barebones economy, eaten raw and served in meat bars.
But where does the meat come from? Whence the amorphous flesh blobs and pools of blood? From another planet, another dimension? There are no animals in this strange ecosystem apart from Fleshworms. The strange meat seems to be linked to another mystery, the advent of the flesh titans (which are exactly what the name suggests). Soon we discover that we are able to commune with the meat and, through it, speak to a enigmatic being called The Oracle. The meat is a kind of universal consciousness, a flesh and blood information highway, into which those who are attuned to it can plug in. Whether the meat and the flesh titans are good or bad for humanity is up for debate, and there are factions that deify and others that hate them, vying for power. The clot thickens.
]]>It may not be Halloween for a while, but there's no reason you can't celebrate horror as a genre all year round. In fact, it's one of our favourite genre of games, so we've put together our list of the 25 best horror games to play on PC right now. It really showcases the breadth of horror on PC right now, from visual novels to shooters to survival to weirdo demon games and text adventures, so it's a real joy to peruse.
]]>Quick! You don't even really have time to read this post, depending on how fast a reader you are. Little Nightmares, classic creepy horror game, is free to keep if you grab it from Steam before 6pm on Sunday May 30th.
You can rush to the game's Steam page now to set it downloading, or you can read on first if you think you can finish this post within the next 20 hours.
]]>Now that Little Nightmares 2 is out, developers Tarsier Studios are moving onto something new. What is it? All they'll say is not not more Little Nightmares. However, publishers Bandai Namco, who own the rights to the horror puzzle-platformer series, have indicated they might have plans for "more content". Whatever that means?
]]>I really loved the first Little Nightmares and it remains one of my favourite games of all time to this very day. The attention to detail, the twisted version of adulthood as seen through the night terrors of a child, the stand-out imagery of horrible hulking monsters that stayed with you long after you'd turned it off. Ah! Perfection! And while Little Nightmares II doesn't feel quite as perfect as its predecessor, you know what? It's still really good.
]]>Spooky sequel Little Nightmares 2 is just around the corner waiting to pop out and scare you in February. If you've not played its predecessor puzzle platformer, well not to worry, you can snag it free for keeps through Sunday, giving you plenty of time to creep through it before the sequel. Bandai Namco have also scared up a frightful new trailer for the occasion.
]]>The doughy and wonderfully unpleasant horrors of Little Nightmares will return next year in a sequel, Bandai Namco announced today. Little Nightmares II will send us out into the wider world as another spooky wee kid, this time a lad with a paper bag on our head, and our yellow-coated pal from the first game is coming along. She'll be an AI-controlled friend keeping us company on our puzzle-platforming adventure, sadly not a chum for cooperative multiplayer. Though I'm not sure my usual co-op pals would be much use when we're shouting "WHAT IS THIS AWFUL DOUGH-CHEESE-MEAT-MELT PERSON?" anyway. Anyway! Meet some of the new horrors in the announcement trailer.
]]>Thinking back, the first half of 2017 feels like an age ago, and it's hard to believe that Tarsier Studios' brilliantly creepy Little Nightmares came out less than a year back. Adam loved it to bits, with one of the few complaints being its relative brevity, although it did a lot within its limited run-time.
Perhaps it's time to return to The Maw, then. The third and final chapter of Little Nightmares' DLC 'B-side' has been released, and the journey of The Kid is soon to come to an end. You've plumbed The Depths, and delved into The Hideaway, but it's time to accept your invitation to The Residence.
]]>The first DLC story chapter has arrived in wonderful horrorshow Little Nightmares [official site]. The three-part 'Secrets of the Maw' expansion introduces another child trapped in this awful place, and the first chapter drops him into The Depths to solve watery puzzles and dodge the grasping arms of something awful named The Granny. It's out now. Have a wee peek in this trailer:
]]>A new three-party story is coming to the wonderful/horrifying Little Nightmares [official site] as DLC, publishers Bandai Namco announced today. 'Secrets of the Maw' will star a new child trapped in that dreadful place, visiting new areas and facing new awful enemies. On the bright side, he will get to see more of those lovely little Nomes. The first episode is due in July, then the story should wrap up in January.
]]>Update: The year is finished, which means you can now read the final list of our favourite games of 2017.
2017 has already been an extraordinary year for PC games, from both big-name AAA successes to no-name surprise indie smashes. Keeping up with so much that's worth playing is a tough job, but we've got your back. Here is a collection of the games that have rocked the RPS Treehouse so far this year.
We've all picked our favourites, and present them here in alphabetical order so as not to start any fights. You're bound to have a game you'd have wanted to see on the list, so please do add it to the comments below.
]]>This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the inner workings of their games. This time, Little Nightmares [official site].
The figures you encounter in Little Nightmares are grotesque. Disproportioned and baggy in places they shouldn’t be, the way they look is one thing, but it’s the way they move that really clinches the deal. Their staggering, shuffling and lumbering captures the flavour of the Czech stop-motion cartoons I spent a great deal of my childhood feeling unnerved by. They’re great.
It wasn’t easy to reach that special state of uncanniness, especially for a small team working on its first original game, but developer Tarsier Studios started in just the right place:
THE MECHANIC: Avoiding Pixar
Spoilers lie ahead, obv! No story secrets as such, though, just showing several scenes from throughout the game.
]]>"I've loved almost every minute of it," our Adam said about Little Nightmares [official site] last week. Only you had no way to play it then, as it wasn't out, so all you could do was stare at it through the shop window, face pressed up against the glass. Oh, how you longed to puzzle-o-sneak-a-platform past Tarsier Studios' horrors! Good news: Little Nightmares is now out, launched last night. Here's a launch trailer to prove it:
]]>Little Nightmares [official site] is the story of a little girl in a horrible place. It's a horror game but it's mostly bloodless and doesn't rely on jumpscares or sudden shocks. I've loved almost every minute of it.
]]>Day 2 of EGX Rezzed 2017 is underway in That London, where Tobacco Dock [nb: I've discovered it does have a boat but still neither boat trips nor fags -ed.] is filled with games, talks, and lights for three days. We're Rezzed's official "media partner" so we've dispatched Pip, Adam, Graham, and a poorly Alec to poke around, host some talks, interview some developers, and look proud of our 'Cave of Wonders' showcase. To slack off, in other words.
Tonight they're going to the pub 'on official RPS business' and you're invited. I'm not, but you are. So to ensure they continue generating content while swanning about, I'm making them send me updates throughout their day.
]]>Little Nightmares [official site] stars a fairy tale terror tot, cloaked in a yellow hood and traipsing through a world that is a couple of sizes too big for her. She's being held captive in a horrible floating dollhouse full of long-armed, stubby-legged man-things and sad, grasping cooks. We know all this because we’ve been told before. But there’s a new trailer out which shows some of what you’ll actually be doing among this grim vessel's household. Mostly it’s about throwing your toys about.
]]>What I dig so much about Little Nightmares [official site] is that the nightmares aren't little - you are. Vast hands emerge from the shadows on snaking arms. Clammy chefs bloated like drowned corpses reach for you cowering under tables. A sea of shoes. The world of Tarsier Studios' puzzle-platformer looks dreadful in the most wonderful way. Adam will tell you it's pleasing to play too, or at least the preview version he played was. The rest of us will finally get to venture into its undersea dollhouse soon-ish, as Little Nightmares now has a release date: April 28th.
]]>As Old Father Time grabs his sickle and prepares to take ailing 2016 around the back of the barn for a big sleep, we're looking to the future. The mewling pup that goes by the name 2017 will come into the world soon and we must prepare ourselves for its arrival. Here at RPS, our preparations come in the form of this enormous preview feature, which contains details on more than a hundred of the exciting games that are coming our way over the next twelve months. 2016 was a good one - in the world of games at least - but, ever the optimists, we're hoping next year will be even better.
]]>It's always an odd experience, playing a horror game in a crowded convention centre. At EGX, I sat down with Little Nightmares [official site] and that it managed to work its way under my skin despite the surroundings is as glowing as any praise I can direct toward this gorgeous, uncanny creation.
The graphics and setting, somewhere between the Grimmest of fairy tales, Dark Water and City of Lost Children, have received a lot of attention, but looks aren't everything. It's the sound design that made me shudder.
]]>There's a new trailer for Little Nightmares [official site] - a kind of sneaky fantasy horror puzzler with an art style that nods to stop motion hand-animated films. We wrote about it before when it was called Hunger but it looks like there's been a renaming in the run up to the devs taking a playable build to Gamescom.
]]>
