Well, it’s been a long hard road, but since I vowed to only consume alcohol matured while having game soundtracks forcibly blasted into its molecules, giving up drinking has been a lot easier. Now, to take the final gulp of my Snake Eater-theme-reared IPA, and open up my web browser….
]]>Fans of odd games with multiple endings and themes of identity and oppression, rejoice! Or, maybe, not rejoice. Time will tell. In the latest issue of Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, Yosuke Saito, the series producer for Nier, teased that he might be working on something new with Yoko Taro and Keiichi Okabe, the director and composer for the Nier series, respectively.
Via Gematsu and PCGamer, Saito said, “I’ve been talking about wanting to do something with Yoko and Okabe for some time now. I’ll have something a bit more put-together to say in the not-too-distant future, so please stay tuned. It might be NieR, it might not be NieR. (Laughs.) That’s about all I can say for now.” Thanks for the clarity, Saito.
]]>The Nier series will keep going as long as its mask-headed creator Yoko Taro is breathing, producer Yosuke Saito has said - while tempering expectations for a sequel (or prequel, or something less obvious) to Nier: Automata to arrive anytime soon.
]]>Scrolling through Twitter, Daniel Griffiths' interest was piqued when he saw a post describing a mysterious phenomenon being shared in the Nier: Automata community: A2 opening a hidden door in The Copied City and strolling into a secret, never-before-seen area. Curious, he decided to pursue more knowledge, and landed in the Nier modding Discord server.
Like him, many other Nier: Automata players who caught wind of the phenomenon sat upright - metaphorically and perhaps literally - and flocked to both Reddit and Discord to check out what exactly was up with the secret area. It was dubbed the "church mystery" or "sadfutago's posts", among other monikers.
]]>Cast your mind back to a few months ago, when the sun was shinier and the leaves were greener. Remember all the furore over Nier: Automata’s supposed secret church? Well, now you too can play the greatest trick the Internet ever pulled on people who enjoy Yoko Taro games a bit too much. SadFutago’s The Nier: Automata Church mod is finally ready to download from NexusMods.
]]>For several weeks, a Nier: Automata player has caused intrigue and excitement by posting mysterious images and videos from an area no one had seen before. Was it a secret area? An unfinished area? A hoax? Viral marketing? A mod? If it was a mod, it was far more complex than any so far. Turns out, that's because a group of fans have secretly been making their own mod tools, and plan to release them soon. In the meantime, I've enjoyed pranksters memeing on the mystery by creating secret churches in other games, including Half-Life 2 and Super Mario 64.
]]>Platinum Games' online action-RPG Babylon's Fall is almost here, which may come as a bit of surprise to those of us living and breathing Elden Ring at the moment. But one thing that may draw your attention away from spectral steeds are spectral weapons, something called gut strings, and an upcoming collaboration with NieR Automata. Yeah, take that Elden Ring. Babylon's Fall will let me carve up sad androids with the aid of my innards, and it looks fun.
]]>Platinum Games' new CEO Atsushi Inaba says that he wants the company to "create new games on a larger scale" which "can be enjoyed and loved for a longer period of time." In an interview with Famitsu, he discussed the need for the studio to move beyond the "one-off" experiences the studio is known for and towards, its implied, live service games.
]]>In a special Christmas message from three of the NieR series' development stars, creative director Yoko Taro has announced that NieR is over. No more NieR games for us... unless he receives a massive pile of money. Quickly, it becomes clear he's just joshing around. Another classic ruse from the man in the Emil mask, and a subtle hint that they may have something new in the works. Plus, it's just a really delightful video and you should all watch it.
]]>Nier: Automata is a great and beloved game, but it was released in a poor state on Steam four years ago. Since then, players have relied on fan patches to get the game to do simple things, like run in the correct resolution or play cutscenes without stuttering.
No more. The long-awaited patch announced back in April is arriving this week on July 15th.
]]>When Rogue One: A Star Wars Story came out in 2016, most of us already knew how it was going to end: miserably. In the final scene, the protagonists brace for death - just after sending critical Death Star schematics to their fellow rebels - setting the stage for 1977’s A New Hope. All we knew up until Rogue One was that a group of rebels sacrified themselves for the future of the galaxy. This bittersweet ending offers a fatal catharsis to a doomed story that predates the original Star Wars trilogy: this is how they did it, this is how they struggled, and this is why living through the end mattered.
And now, after what feels like an eon of pandemic anxiety, death, struggle, and economic despair, we have the much-anticipated re-release of Nier Replicant. Sorry - Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139.
]]>As much as I adore Nier: Automata (degree: a lot), I cannot deny the PC version is a bit bum and has been since it launched four years ago. It's daft that we've had to use a fan-made fix to run it in the correct resolution or stop cutscenes stuttering. Square Enix did us dirty. But oh my giddy aunt, the stars have aligned and today they finally announced an "upgrade patch" for the post-apocalyptic RPG's Steam version. Presumably with the fixes from the recent Microsoft Store edition?
]]>The wait is over: Final Fantasy XIV's servers are back online, and patch 5.5 Death Unto Dawn has landed. This update serves as the mid-point between the game's previous expansion, Shadowbringers, and the upcoming one, Endwalker (which will arrive sometime this autumn). It brings new story bits that lead directly into Endwalker, alongside the next part of the Nier-inspired raid, YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse. On top of that, FFXIV has added new quests, balance changes, New Game+ updates and more.
]]>When Adam wrote our Nier: Automata review, he didn't have a lot of issues with its PC port. Others sadly weren't so lucky, and modders have stepped in over the past several years to fix many graphics, performance, and quality-of-life issues that Square Enix and Platinum Games failed to address.
Now a new version of the game is out on PC that fixes many of those problems while adding new graphical bells and whistles. The catch: it's only available via the Windows store and Xbox Game Pass, and not via Steam.
]]>You know how your parents will invite you over for that one meal that's best when they make it, letting you totally stuff your face before telling you there's dessert too? That's this month on Xbox Game Pass for PC. Microsoft have already packed the service full of some favorite Bethesda games just last week. But wait, they're serving up even more good games for their subscription library before March is over. Please, Microsoft, I can't eat another byte.
]]>Nier: Automata is a secretive enough game already, I gather, what with its multiple endings and unpredictable story and all. Apparently there's still been one pesky secret to uncover, as teased by the developers themselves, which one clever player has finally managed to uncover after hours of work. 2B officially has nothing left to hide.
]]>I don’t often replay games, and if I do, it is because they are good. To complete NieR: Automata, you need to replay the game three times. Normally, I’d hate a game's guts for doing this to me, but you know what? I’d do it three more times for NieR: Automata (actually, maybe not because it is quite long, but let's go along with the idea that I would).
]]>Whether you prefer wizards, sword-and-board warriors, the irradiated wasteland, vampires, or isometric text-heavy stories, the RPG is the genre that will never let you down. Accross the dizzing number of games available where you can play a role, there's something for everyone - and we've tried to reflect that in our list of the best RPGs on PC. The past couple of years have been great for RPGs, so there are some absolute classics as well as brand spanking new games on this list. And there's more to look forwards to, with rumblings of Dragon Age: Dread Wolf finally on the horizon, and space epic Starfield in our rear view mirror. Whatever else may happen, though, this list will provide you with the 50 best RPGs that you can download and play on PC right now.
]]>Dearest reader, I bring you tragic and wonderful news. A wealthy long-lost relative has died (oh no!) and bequeathed you their estate (oh ho!) but with one unusual condition (o-oh?). Should you wish to claim their riches, titles, and mansion, you must fully accept into your heart and life one of two new ludicrous 1/4-scale video game statues. From now until your end, you shall live surrounded by them. Tell me, reader dear: will it be the giant Nier: Automata trio or the 51cm Cyberpunk 2077 Keanu Reeves?
]]>Square Enix today announced an April 23rd release date for Nier Replicant Ver.1.22474487139..., the confusingly-named new edition of the 2010 action-RPG. This game is set millennia before Nier: Automata, the first game in the series that came to PC, though it does have a few familiar faces. The new version is tweaked, expanded, and prettied-up a bit, supposedly enough that Squeenix call it an "update" or "modern re-telling" rather than use simple and helpful terms like 'remaster' or 'remake'. Come enjoy some nice landscapes and sad music in the new trailer below.
]]>Post-apocalyptic videogames, the ultimate escape. How wonderful to venture to a strange land, so different from our own, and see what the world may look like an entire week from now. Well, today the PlayStation clan secluded themselves behind their barricades with The Last Of Us Part 2, leaving the PC tribe to suffer in the harsh elements of reality alone. But never fear, wanderer. Here are some similar games to play if you want to leave your austere existence behind, and indulge in a grim struggle instead. Pull up a plastic bucket, break open a tin of Pedigree Chum, here are the 8 bleakest post-apocalypses in PC gaming. A post-apocalyst.
]]>You know how it is. You think you're into videogame soundtracks, then you go and hear someone perform ten of them on a Mongolian string instrument. I recently spent 20 minutes listening to a man do just that, and I think you should too.
Genius Jaavka is the man. The morin khuur is his instrument. Songs from Horizon Zero Dawn (coming to PC this summer), Mortal Kombat, Dota 2 and Fortnite are just some of the ones he treats us to. He's really very good.
]]>Over here in PC land we normally wouldn't get to write about Nintendo's cutesy island life sim, Animal Crossing, but I've found a wonderful reason to bring it before your eyes today. Animal Crossing: New Horizons lets you design all manner of lovely clothing items and pictures for you to display somewhere in your town, and players have been using it to create outfits inspired by PC games like Sea Of Thieves, Sayonara Wild Hearts and, of course, Doom: Eternal.
]]>Everyone loves a good action game. It's the driving force behind so many of our favourite PC games, but only a few can lay claim to being the best action games of all time. That's why we've compiled this list - to sort the pulled punches from the bestest biffs that PC has to offer. Whether it's the joy of pulling off a perfect combo, riding the wave of an explosive set-piece or the hair-raising thrill of dodging enemy attacks in slow-motion that gets you going, there's an action game here for you.
]]>Here we stand in the dark neo-year of 2020. The spam bots have risen to prominence, the governments of the world are bickering over follower counts, and history class has been renamed "meme studies". Somewhere, in a dusty room in the RPS treehouse, a rogue human is compiling a list article for a crumbling PC games website. It is a warning to all those who read it. A prophecy of the terrible things to come. Wars, invasions, disease, heat death. Videogames, it turns out, have predicted all this and more. Here we replicate this cautionary pre-chronicle, your guide to the harrowing times ahead. Here are the 11 worst years in our future history, according to games.
]]>Nothing says 'Monday morning' quite like punching yourself directly in the heart with a fist formed from five minutes of music then crumpling on the floor, a solitary tear rolling down your cheek. Thanks, Square Enix, for enabling this Monday morning moment by adding Nier soundtracks to Spotify. As part of the tenth birthday celebrations for the series, soundtracks for Nier: Automata as well as ye olde Nier Gestalt and Replicant from consoles are now up on streaming services. Listen at home! Listen on the bus! Listen at work then try to justify it by writing a post about you crying over roboguilt at 11am on a Monday!
]]>Bayonetta and Nier: Automata developers Platinum Games have made a big announcement to start off the year - they've got themselves a partnership investment from Chinese conglomerate Tencent. With this, they might start self-publishing games. That's not all though. The company have even more in store for us in the coming months, including an update on upcoming game Babylon's Fall, and according to Platinum's president and CEO, Kenichi Sato, 2020 will really be the year they come into their own.
]]>The heartbreakingly human androids of Nier: Automata today returned, sadly not with a sequel but in a Final Fantasy XIV crossover. Bully for you if you play the MMORPG, I suppose. For me, well, I suppose it makes me a little more sad - and isn't that what Nier is really all about? You're having an inferior Nier experience if you do play the new raid, frankly. The update also added new main quests, added quests for anime baby pixies, improved the tools for playing musical instruments, adding a trombone... lots of things. Me, I'm interested for the lost little robots.
]]>You know what Final Fantasy XIV was missing? Existentially depressed robots, probably. Truth be told I've never played the MMO. Nor Nier: Automata, for that matter. I'm sure it has all that clever storytelling and philosophical guff you lot say it does, but I never got past the whole "explode yourself to see some robot panties" layer. Really, that's just how it goes.
But hey! Suppose if I ever chance my mind on either, I can always kill two birds with one stone. Next month's Shadowbringers update finally brings the two together in the first Yorha: Dark Apocalypse raid.
]]>Usually after the Steam summer sale horror show, the Steam Charts offer us some respite in the lull between AAA releases and allow us to celebrate the successful release of a bunch of indie games. But as you'll have noticed if you've looked at 2019, nothing follows the rules of sense and decorum any longer. So it is that last week and this, we've had charts that feature only a single recently released game.
So this week we're taking a trip!
]]>It's never a good sign when Skyrim's back in the Charts. It means mischief is afoot. And not the good kind. In this case, it's Bethesda's Quakecon sale, meaning a whole bunch of the dreariest of usual suspects return to droop our eyelids and weary our souls. And Nier and Flibble Glibble Pants are both on sale yet again. In fact, this week's top 10 features precisely one game released in the last TWO YEARS.
So this week I think I shall describe to you the feelings I feel when I see these games appearing once more.
]]>Nier: Automata was one of the best games of 2017, and one I recommend wholeheartedly, just so long as anyone playing the PC version grabs the unofficial FAR patch by "Kaldaien". Folks were hoping that today's release of the GOTY (Game Of The YoRHa) edition of the game would fix that, and include a patch from developers Platinum. Sadly, that's not the case. If you didn't own it previously, the price on the single piece of DLC has been cut, and includes the GOTY perks - some skins for your pod drone, and a machine mask to hide your tears. See the braggadocious trailer below.
]]>Final Fantasy XIV’s Shadowbringers expansion will launch on July 2nd, Square Enix have announced in a keynote at the Paris fan-festival.
Game director and producer Naoki Yoshida also spoke about many new details, including announcing a crossover raid that will draw on the world of Nier: Automata, called YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse.
A new trailer, helpfully grabbed by YouTuber Giuseppe's Gaming, teases many of the expansion's additions, including story beats and the new job class, known as gunbreaker:
]]>The ruins and couture of Nier: Automata are looking mighty swish in a high-resolution texture pack mod, and without losing their character. I tend not to use 'HD texture packs', partially because so many are oversharp messes or wildly change the tone and partially because I've become a hoary purist who insists that Quake should be played without texture smoothing, but this looks pretty deece. If you are the sort of person who'd rather play Platinum's action-RPG retouched, creator "GPUnity" released a big new version yesterday, bringing it a lot closer to done. Here, check out this original/new comparison video.
]]>Warning: Contains spoilers.
The first robot to be built in Japan, in 1929, was named Gakutensoku, meaning “learning from the laws of nature”. Its creator, biologist Makoto Nishimura, would later say of his mechanical progeny: “If one considers humans as the children of nature, artificial humans created by the hand of man are thus nature’s grandchildren.” The robot was unveiled at Emperor Hirohito’s ascension ceremony and later taken on tour. At one show was novelist Hiroshi Aramata, who wrote that when the machine shook its head it was “as if to express the agony of creation.”
To the android 9S , when we first meet him in Nier: Automata, such agony would be unthinkable.
]]>If the sexy horrors emerging from Soulcalibur VI's character creator hadn't already convinced you that it's the horniest fighting game, the next DLC character might sway you: it's 2B from Nier: Automata. Oh 2B, 2B, poor 2B, the robogoth cursed to fight an endless war for the glory of mankind dressed as a sexy fightmaid. (Don't judge: once you recognise the secret reason for her exposure, you will feel ashamed of your words and deeds.) She's "coming soon", Bandai Namco announced over the weekend.
]]>It’s Halloween (month)! I don’t know about you lovely lot, but there’s nothing I find more spooky or chilling than charts detailing what the most popular video games are in a given week. That's me, Fraser, filling in for John who is on holiday. A terrifying holiday, I bet.
]]>Daddy: Hey Toby, can I get your help with some work please?
Toby: OK, but they might be disappointed I'm a cat.
This week on Steam Charts, my three-year-old son tells us all about the top ten grossing games on Steam.
]]>After 525 days of holding my tongue on Nier: Automata, of cautiously asking "So... what ending did you get?" and giving vague "I like Pascal too" answers so as not to spoil any surprises while wanting to tear my heart out, I'm calling an end to this: the moratorium on spoilers is over. I've avoided talking about Nier: Automata so much that I actually forgot parts of the game. Revisiting the game over the past few days, I've been amazed and delighted and heartbroken all over again, so to hell with this; let's talk about everything. It's not right that the only things I'll openly say about Nier: Automata are that it's "lovely" and "surprising" and "has a janky PC port", when I'd much rather talk about...
]]>We've just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It's a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you'll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.
2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets.
]]>Hullo! John is preoccupied with wizards right now, so I'm taking over for the rundown of last week's top ten on Steam. It was an interesting week, bringing back some welcome old games and slamming in some shiny new ones. Largely, it's all about robots and survival.
]]>As I drag my groggy-faced body to the monitor at 6.30 each Monday morning, I click the bookmark for my Steam Charts RSS and scrunch up my face so my forehead and nose curl over my eyes. How bad will it be? How familiar will the list of five-year-old games be? How will I think of... BUT WHAT IS THIS?!!?! FOUR new entries! Far Cry 5 taking up only one slot! No Witcher 3! No Skyrim! It's like Christmas, where Christmas is a day you just about get through without things being as bad as they were last year.
]]>John is elsewhere this week, squeezed into Brendan's luggage for a flight to San Francisco and the Game Developers Conference, so I'm here for the regular rundown of last week's top-selling games on Steam. This week, the letters R, A, and S are well-represented with strong showings from both Mars and rats.
]]>Greetings, readers. John, your regular guide to this hollow summary of ceaseless material consumption, is missing. We presume he has angered the company overlords with some sort of ill-judged diatribe against corporate consolidation, and has subsequently been reassigned to another media outlet, possibly The Re-education Supplement, or Gulag's Weekly. Well, you won't find any such insubordination from me. I have only the purest intentions of telling you the top ten best sellers on Steam this week, with a secondary goal of reinforcing the cold emptiness of our predominant mercantile culture. Let's buy some games!
]]>Some Monday mornings, as I plonk myself down at my desk at 6.50am and load the RSS feed for the Steam Charts, I think to myself: you know what? There are so many other things I'd like to write about today. Anyway, here are the top ten games on Steam from the last week.
]]>You’d think we could agree on four simple letters. But nothing is ever straightforward on RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. This week the gang are talking JRPGs, or Japanese role-playing games to use some real words for human people. Does a game have to be made in Japan to be defined as an JRPG? Or does it just need some bright colours and lots of turn-based battles? Maybe it only needs a boss behind a boss (and then another boss behind that one)? Come with us into the petty world of the genre bouncer, as we examine the shoes of dozens of games and decide whether or not they’re allowed into the JRPG nightclub.
]]>We've already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin' and a-shakin' in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol' Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well - as do a host of other games from 2017's great and good.
Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you're so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I'd have gone for in each category.
]]>PlatinumGames, the makers of such wonderful games as Bayonetta and Nier: Automata, are looking into making and self-publishing games of their own. While they're not announcing any specific games just yet, Platinum say they invited all staff to pitch ideas and have whittled 70-odd submitted design documents down to two ideas they're focusing on. Yes, their own games are likely to offer the action you'd expect from Platinum, though obviously made on smaller budgets without the backing of big publishers. They're not done with making games for publishers, mind, so we should see still more big-budget explore-o-ramas from them too.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>The calendar's doors have been opened and the games inside have been eaten. But fear not, latecomer - we've reconstructed the list in this single post for easy re-consumption. Click on to discover the best games of 2017.
]]>The tail-end of Steam's Autumnal sale sees a few old favourites lingering with the usual suspects in the charts this week. The discounts that got them here are all gone now, but it's only a couple of weeks now before everything goes completely bonkers for the Winter Sale, and you can expect to see all the same names deeply discounted once more.
]]>Hey ho, chart fans, let's go. Statman John is indisposed today, and was last seen meandering along the seafront muttering "Plunkbat! They give me Plunkbat! I've a grand idea for a grand theft five five fi-diddly-fi fi whoopsadaisy down we go," so I'm taking over for this week's Steam charts. Seeing as he's always griping about the charts being identical, I'm sure John will be infuriated to miss seeing how much Steam's autumn sale changed things. Won't you join for me a stroll down the hit parade?
]]>This week we finally learn who the killer is, but will the answer provide more questions than solutions? Read on for this week's hair-raising installment of... The Steam Charts.
]]>Come one, come all, but not all at once or you'll break our caching, and see the Steam Charts in all their glory! Which game will have reached the coveted #2 position this week?!
]]>As the Steam Summer Sale closes, here's the last of the charts influenced by the discounts, before they return to being exactly the same as they were before the sale, and indeed during it.
So this week we're going to dig into the history of these familiar names, revealing some secrets of their pasts that many may not already know.
]]>As we learnt last week, the Steam Summer Sale feels like the sort of thing that should enliven the charts. Nothing can enliven the charts...
Apart from me!
]]>The Steam Summer Sale is here to rescue us from the same old games! Hooray! Hooray! Hoo-whatnow? Oh for crying out loud, the usual games are all on sale too, aren't they?
]]>The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don’t worry. We’ve rounded up some recommendations - both general tips and some newly added staff choices.
Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You're welcome.
]]>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.
]]>Hold onto your butts! If you don't, they'll fall off as you rocketslide around a spacecity kicking robots in Vanquish [official site]. Almost seven years after its console debut, the third-person shooter from Bayonetta and Nier: Automata devs PlatinumGames has finally arrived on PC. It is a good video game. Did I not mention that you can rocketslide and kick robots? Our Alec is bumsliding around to tell us all Wot He Thinks but, for now, here's notice that it's out and some brief tech thoughts.
]]>Nier: Automata [official site] is a wonderful action-RPG plagued, for some, by technical issues. Random crashes, blurry visuals and low frame rates are just a few of the problems players have faced, but those with AMD cards have had it worst. It's been virtually unplayable for some because of a bug turning the screen white, which is pretty inexcusable.
AMD have finally got round to addressing the problem with new drivers.
]]>Did you know: the weekly Steam charts, in which we round-up the ten games which sold best on Steam over the previous week, are broadly the most-read articles on RPS these days?
That means I can never stop. Never. Stop.
]]>Nier: Automata [official site] is so wonderful and complete in itself that I might be happy to skip DLC and not even play again for a fair while. I'll return later, absolutely, but for now I might pass on the DLC released today. 3C3C1D119440927 is its name, and adding arena battles and costumes is its game. Given that this is Nier: Automata, I suspect it may be more complicated than that. I mean, beyond the fact that it has battles against the CEOs of Square Enix and PlatinumGames; that's not even a secret. Here, have a gander at the DLC's launch trailer:
]]>We have a GIFbot in the RPS staff chatroom. GIFbot is a treacherous and unreliable creature, often offering wildly irrelevant or breathtakingly banal results when we type '/gif whateverphrase' and then cope with whatever it randomly pulls from whatever reprobate corner of the internet it's plugged into it. However, often enough its results are so irrelevant as to be perfection itself. And so we shall keep it around for an eternity, and reach for it in our darkest hours.
For instance, in the absence of a better conceit for the latest Steam Charts. For these, once again, are the ten games with the most accumulated sales on Steam over the past week. Take it away, GIFbot.
]]>DLC adding coliseum battles might sound somewhat unimaginative for a game as endlessly surprising and heartbreaking as Nier: Automata [official site] but that's what is coming. Oh, wait, and it'll let those lovable warteens fight the CEOs of Square Enix and PlatinumGames. That's more like it! The action-RPG's first DLC, titled '3C3C1D119440927', is coming "soon" with coliseum scraps and rewards including cosmetic doodads like costumes from the first Nier. Here, check out this chief executive beatdown:
(If you haven't gone through several of Automata's endings, this post will show some things you may not know about.)
]]>Bayonetta [Steam page] just arrived on PC and though she's late to the party, in some ways the timing couldn't be more perfect. The game's creators, PlatinumGames, are amazing when at their best, but have released a few disappointing duffers over the years. Bayonetta is not a duffer and might be my favourite of their games.
This belated PC release comes hot on the heels of NieR: Automata, another game that showed Platinum at their best. It's a mini golden age for stylish third-person action over on the PC right now and I'm here to tell you why you might just fall in love with Bayonetta.
]]>He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it anymore obvious? He wrote the weekly Steam charts. She read them.
What more can I say?
Other than that these are the ten Steam games with the most accumulated sales over the past week, obv. See ya later, boy.
]]>You woke up this morning, got yourself a gun, Mama always said you'd be the chosen one to write the weekly Steam charts. These are the games which sold best on Steam last week.
This week: order returns. OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY
]]>Alec is still away, ostensibly on holiday but presumed dead. Ride in peace, Alec Meer. All that remains of last week's chart caretaker is a selection of small bones John coughed up, so it's my turn. It's a good week in the charts!
We've some new games, some familiar faces, and at least one familiar face with a new game. It's a shame Mass Effect: Andromeda's Origin exclusivity keeps it out of this comparison. Not to ruin the suspension but: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the new early access Hunger Royale game, is riding high at the top of the hit parade.
]]>Platinum's Nier: Automata [official site] is a cracking game, our Adam will tell you, and from the 16 hours I've played I'd certainly agree. Sadly, technical problems are dragging it down for some -- not all, to be clear -- players. Issues include fullscreen mode upscaling wonkily, crashes, and unexpectedly poor performance. The Automata team have now issued a statement saying they're investigating reports. But in the meantime, players have come up with some good fixes themselves.
]]>Alec is away this week. I fear that if he can't find a wifi signal on his travels he might resort to haruspicy to try and find the truths contained within the weekly Steam charts. These round-ups of the ten games with the most cumulative sales over the past week are his obsession and his curse.
This week: while the cat's away...
]]>Nier: Automata [official site] is unpredictable, from beginning to end(s).
What begins as a robot-smashing action game with gargantuan bosses soon becomes an open world RPG, then a bullet hell circus nightmare with confetti and corpses, and then something else entirely. To describe all of the things that Automata encompasses, even in vague terms, would be to spoil its greatest asset: surprise. For that reason, I've avoiding the specifics of almost any of the wonderful and horrible things that happen. This is important.
Let's stick with the basics then. Automata, at its best, fuses Platinum's mastery of stylish action to a framework that works as both a tour and deconstruction of various genres, and a story both stranger and more interesting than it first appears. It's awesome.
]]>Once I finish this post, I'm done for the day and can go play Nier: Automata [official site]. And as luck would have it, this post is about the release of Automata. The new hack 'n' slash bullet hell open-world action-RPG... thing from Square Enix and PlatinumGames launched on PC today, following its PlayStation 4 debut earlier this month. Adam is currently bashing away to tell us all Wot He Thinks next week but, for now, here's word that it's out - and news of some unpleasant technical problems.
]]>Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot. So its disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. It must be a creature of the night, black, terrible... it's only the weekly Steam charts! These are the ten games with the most cumulative sales over the past week.
This week: DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER.
]]>Framed for murder, now they prowl the badlands, an outlaw hunting outlaws, a bounty hunter, a renegade, it's only the weekly Steam charts! These are the ten games which sold best on Steam last week.
]]>After a spot of umming and ahhing, Square Enix have confirmed a PC release date of March 17th for NieR: Automata [official site]. That is ten days after its console launch but, given that I've been waiting literally years for Platinum games like Bayonetta and Vanquish to hit PC (go on, Sega), I'm perfectly fine with that. NieR: Automata is an action-RPG about childlike androids in the far future coming down from the Moon to beat up robots across the ruins of Earth. Its action is very Platinum-y, which is a great thing to be. After a few licensed duffers, NieR looks like a return to form for Platinum.
]]>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.
]]>Cavia's 2010 oddball action-RPG Nier never came to PC but I did hear good things about it, mutterings that it could be quite loveable if you got over its flaws, mutterings that reminded me of my beloved Deadly Premonition. Well, we still haven't had Nier on PC but we will be getting the sequel. Publishers Square Enix today announced that NieR: Automata [official site] is coming our way and ooh, this time the venerable PlatinumGames are making it. Given the wonders they conjured when they made a game about a warcyborg, I'm jolly excited to see what they do with two childlike warbots. Beyond ultraviolence, obvs.
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