Good news, everybody! Dragon Age: The Veilguard - previously Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, strictly speaking Dragon Age 4 - is not the bantzy heist romp suggested by its debut trailer. Less Good News for returning players: going by the 45 minute segment I was shown at Summer Game Fest, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is more of a single-character action-RPG plus entourage, than a proper party-based affair in the vein of 2014's Dragon Age: Inquisition. You do get a party, drawn from a retinue of seven, larger-than-life, romanceable companions encompassing a range of classes, abilities and go-faster hairdos, but control of that party has been streamlined, and there's a God Of Warlike emphasis on booting Fade demons into pits. Hmmm.
]]>It’s been almost a decade since Rebel Galaxy ably picked up the sci-fi trading and exploration mantle handed down by Freelancer, but it looks like a successor to the serene galaxy-venturing vibes of both is finally upon us. Star Trucker is exactly what it sounds like, transplanting the chill A-to-Z courier journeys of Euro Truck Simulator to the interplanetary, uh, roads of space. It’s out this September, and it looks wonderful.
]]>For me, sandbox games are never better when there’s an inherent chaos about to erupt at any given second. In a literal sandbox that might be anything from a kid burying a freshly-laid turd like a mischievous cat ready to be stepped on by an unsuspecting trespasser, gathering handfuls of grit to lob in a another kids’ eyes or swallowing a bunch of sand (hopefully turd-free) in pursuit of alchemising diamonds in their stomach. There don’t seem to be turds of any kind in upcoming sandbox RPG Streets of Fortuna, but that’s about the only thing that this ambitious “megasim” appears to be missing in its sprawling go-anywhere, do-anything open world.
]]>I've been trying to figure out what "scoundrelly" means in a videogame context. Whatever it means, Han Solo homage Star Wars Outlaws ain't it. Here are some basically non-scoundrelly, very Ubisofty things I did during my 60 minutes with Massive Entertainment's open world adaptation at Summer Game Fest this week: climbed around rectangular arrangements of yellow handholds. Shot at baddies over rectangular cover layouts. Collected 7/10 pieces of scrap with some Star Wars flavour text that unlocked an item recipe of some kind. Deployed my chibi Chewbacca sidekick Nix to distract Imperials with cute wiggles and belly boops so I could sneak behind them. Got discovered sneaking behind them and murdered them all before one could run to a terminal and summon reinforcements. OK, maybe that last one is getting there.
]]>It’s been five years since Anno 1800, but we’ve finally seen what’s next for Ubisoft’s history-hopping city-building series. Anno 117: Pax Romana will be the earliest period for the franchise yet, travelling back to the time of a peaceful Ancient Rome. After the biggest gap between Anno games yet, we at least won’t have to wait too long for the newly revealed entry: it’s out next year.
]]>Assassin’s Creed has been threatening to go to Japan for so long that I think the idea has lost its thunder, but I’ll admit to a squee of enthusiasm, during our first look at Assassin’s Creed Shadows, when deuteragonist Naoe grappled onto the ceiling to allow a castle guard to pass innocently beneath. I was similarly tickled by the sight of her breathing through a bamboo pipe while swimming underwater, and I emitted a gentle hum of approval, like a smartphone switching on for the very first time, when she impaled a silhouette through a paper door. Respectable shinobing, for sure. Papa Tenchu would be proud.
]]>Ubisoft’s remake of time-rewinding Prince of Persia classic The Sands of Time has finally reappeared to tease - with the emphasis on tease - a release not this year, not next year, but in 2026.
]]>It's a good thing I'm a big fan of Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown, because it's only that underyling fandom that's making me write this post about the upcoming story DLC. The tease during this evening's Ubisoft Forward did nothing for me, other than confirm a name, Mask Of Darkness, and a release window in September.
]]>I Am Your Beast is a tactical, smack-tical, I hope this tree branch doesn’t crack-tical while I’m hopping off it to land on this dude’s back-tical FPS. It’s from Strange Scaffold, of El Paso, Elsewhere and Booked For The Week fame. It is a euphoric splurge of murderous game verbiage that has you chaining together thrown knives and solar plexus punches, headshots and tree-fu. Lob an empty pistol at your screen, and then replace it, because you’ll need it to watch the trailer below.
]]>Chef RPG is Stardew Valley but for restaurants instead of farms, the ‘plate’ side of the hypothetical ‘farm to plate’ bundle that Steam may one day sell. Even the set-up is similar to the farming game. You rock up all chef-like off the train, and you're soon greeted by your guide Hazel, yet another Boba-clutching robot. I might be misremembering Stardew. Fry yourself off a nice chunk of trai-loumi below.
]]>The Artful Escape developers Beethoven & Dinosaur are following up their musical platformer with another soundtrack-driven narrative game. Mixtape draws on the classic tropes of coming-of-age teen flicks, adds striking stop motion-style visuals and completes the package with a soundtrack that would feel right at home in a John Hughes movie.
]]>Microsoft and Blizzard have slapped a release date on Diablo 4's forthcoming content-o-season Vessel Of Hatred. It's out 8th October 2024, and sees you hooting and hollering down the road to the new region of Nahantu in search of Neyrelle, a character "who is both suffering the fate of her choice to imprison the Prime Evil Mephisto, and seeking a means to destroy him". In the process, you may choose to become "the apex predator of the jungle as the all-new Spiritborn class". You can also recruit mercenaries to help you, fight alongside other players in a new PvE co-op activity, "and more".
]]>S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, the long-awaited sequel to the FPS that perhaps emanates the most shame in my backlog, has a new combat-focused trailer showing off the many dangers of the enigmatic Zone. You’ll also be pleased to know that the release date remains the same as the previous announcement: September 5th 2024, where it will be coming to Game Pass day one. Here’s the tray-tray:
]]>The rumours of a new Gears of War appearing at today’s Xbox Games Showcase were accurate - well, mostly. The next Gears of War won’t be a sequel like Gears of War 6, but instead looks to be a prequel to the entire series that returns to the very beginning of the bloody battle between humanity and the alien Locust.
]]>Microsoft have released a new trailer for South Of Midnight, a third-person action adventure from Compulsion Games, who created dystopian Britpop survival game We Happy Few. I thought We Happy Few had some wonderful ideas and presentation - it's sort of Fable by way of Clockwork Orange and Bioshock - but found its mixture of pill-popping satire and survival game mechanisms self-defeating. South Of Midnight seems no less vivid, but a lot more assured in its God Of War-style action... and it's perhaps a bit less intriguing, as a consequence. Still, don't just sit there reading my opinions. Watch the trailer.
]]>Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, Indy’s upcoming FPS adventure game, has a new ‘Official Showcase Reveal’ trailer, officially showcasing and revealing basically nothing about the game except that it features some pretty and decently acted cutscenes, which we already knew from the previous reveal. It does have snow nazis in however, possibly the rarest flavour of Nazi after Cookies n’ Cream and Original. You’ll find the trailer below. Be careful: it’s official. Also, it’s mainly just one very long cutscene, so if you want to save that stuff for when the game’s out, maybe don’t bother.
]]>I love me a Flight Simulator, but never more when there's some dramatic structure to my flight. That's why I've long been looking forward to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. It takes the staggeringly detailed world and flight model of Asobo's Flight Sim revival, and adds a job system on top. And now it has a release date: November 19th.
]]>Max Caulfield is back! The time-bending protagonist of the first Life is Strange is returning in a new entry in the series, Life is Strange: Double Exposure. It’s out this October.
]]>Microsoft and Playground's genuinely long-awaited Fable reboot will launch in 2025, and they've released a new trailer which... seems... good? And is also quite informative about the moment-to-moment of the game. The video is framed as the memoir of a paunchy retired champion, Humphry, who once mentored a young heroine I presume will be the game's main character, though it's ambiguous. She could also be the villain. Then again, Fable is a series in which you can be the villain. Egad, such shenanigans!
]]>I never played the original Perfect Dark, but the trailer for the reboot shown during this evening's Xbox Games Showcase instantly made it the most exciting game I've seen during not-E3. It's first-person, it's got stealth, it's got parkour, it's got hand-to-hand melee combat including slidekicks. It looks like a mashup of Mirror's Edge and something more immersive sim-y? What's not to like.
]]>Age Of Mythology: Retold, the remaster of the classic strategy beast-em-up, is due to release this year, 4th September 2024 on PC and Game Pass. This will be the 2002 game’s second remaster following its Extended Addition re-release in 2014, and aims to thoroughly spiff up the original with a 3D visual overhaul, new animations and texture, plus UI and QOL improvements. Prevent yourself being seduced by the suspiciously thunder-imbued swan that’s currently chatting you up, and have a gander at the trailer below:
]]>The Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake - aka Metal Gear Solid Delta - resurfaced during tonight’s Xbox Games Showcase. We still don’t have a release date, despite signs we might see the remake of the 2004 game this year, but we did get a pretty good look at a bunch of key moments from the original remade in the shiny Unreal Engine 5 do-over - including a look at The Boss and the familiar gravelly tones of Snake actor David Hayter.
]]>Microsoft have published the very first trailer for EA and BioWare's Dragon Age: The Veilguard, formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, at their summer Xbox Game Showcase. It accompanies the first details of this "immersive single player RPG" - pause for ecstatic applause from Anthem haters - "where you become the leader others believe in". Not miles from the premise of Dragon Age: Inquisition, then. That footage, tho? Not entirely Inquisitiony.
]]>We've known for a while that Starfield was getting its first expansion later this year, but tonight's Xbox Games Showcase gave us its first trailer. My main takeaway? That Bethesda are leaning into cosmic horror, as the trailer features landscapes that look like they're on the other side of an Oblivion gate than anything I saw during my time with Starfield.
]]>DOOM: The Dark Ages is the next Bethesda Doom game, following DOOM 2016 and Doom: Eternal. It takes the FPS series back to a more civilised medieval age, where men and demon solved their disputes with throwable chainsaw shields, massive dragons, and guns that grind skulls at silly speeds then fire out the bone chips. Feast your face on the trailer below.
]]>Those undead just keep on coming back from the grave as Microsoft screen a new trailer for State Of Decay 3, your latest helping of sorrowful yet bloodthirsty zombie-bopping survivalism. I reviewed State Of Decay the first and thought it was a cool scrappy underdog next to larger zombie-botherers such as Left 4 Dead or DayZ. State Of Decay 2, on the other hand, I found to be disappointing - the same game with more money behind it in a way that seemed to magnify its faults. The threequel? I have tempered expectations, but I do want it to be good.
]]>Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will release this October, including a day one launch on Game Pass, with an open beta on the way - and it’s certainly looking like a Call of Duty game.
]]>Capcom's series about big beasts and the clothes you can skin/steal from them continues in Monster Hunter Wilds, which looked as great as ever in its newest trailer from tonight's Summer Game Fest show. We get new peeks at some lovely dunes, reptile-chicken mounts and bulky weapons. Oh, and some monsters ripe for huntin', presumably.
]]>UFO 50 is a collection of fictional retro games designed as if they were made for a non-existent games console 40 years ago, but in reality have been developed as brand new titles for an upcoming collection from indie devs including Spelunky creator Derek Yu. With the ambitious project nearing a decade in its own development, though, those games have now taken on their own real history in addition to their made-up one. Those histories will meet this September, when UFO 50 finally sees the light of day.
]]>Before we get to the latest trailer for S-Game's soulslike Phantom Blade Zero I have a couple of complaints to lodge about the title. Firstly, this game clearly contains a non-zero quantity of blades, from whacking great axes to katanas. Secondly, I do not accept the premise that these are phantom blades. They are very obviously non-spectral, going by the amount of stabbing and clanging on show in the video. With these potentially ruinous caveats out of the way, I am now free to tell you more about a game that looks like it's out to eat Sekiro's lunch.
]]>When the Summer Game Fest trailer for "narrative-centric cosy game" Wanderstop said it was from the creator behind The Stanley Parable, I thought I had surely entered a different dimension where The Stanley Parable was actually a wholesome shop-keeping sim rather than a zig-zagging office-based nightmare. Then Wanderstop started to get rather bleak, and I finally stopped pinching myself. See for yourself.
]]>Things that weren’t on my Summer Game Fest bingo card: a surprise appearance from I Think You Should Leave’s Tim Robinson. Things also not on my Summer Geoff Fest bingo card: that Tim Robinson would show up to reassure us that, yes, Skate is still in the works.
]]>Palworld is getting a lot of new things! I’m going to write the names of these new things now. I really hope they mean something to you. I want you to have nice things. Here are the new things coming to Palworld: a new island. Some new Pals. A new level cap. A new arena. A new subspecies. A new raid. A new oil rig stronghold. A new faction and boss. Maybe some other, secret things? All this newness comes as part of the ‘Sakurajima’ update, which releases on June 27th, 2024.
]]>Night Springs is a fictional TV show within the world of Alan Wake 2, so of course that's also the focus of the meta-horror action game's expansion. It's three episodes, and it's out in under 24 hours.
]]>Among Us developers Innersloth have announced Outersloth, a fund for independent game developers, alongside a bunch of games funded by the aforesaid fund for independent game developers. They all look rad, and Outersloth itself is a cool initiative.
]]>Warframe-like “Next-gen looter shooter” The First Descendant releases this Summer, July 2nd 2024. The ‘next-gen’ part probably refers to Unreal Engine 5, and fair’s fair, it’s a real looker this one. The below trailer is mainly scripted or edited bits, but having played a chunk of the last technical test, there’s some genuinely impressive sci-fi vistas to behold, as well as some absolutely massive bosses. Click on the trailer below, until the purple hat or whatever it is you kids grind for these days, pops out with a synapse-tickling noise workshopped by psychologists for eighteen months.
]]>I’m not familiar with the proto-internet cartoon Killer Bean, but Graham assures me it’s fairly important in the history of online animation. Regardless, I’ve been won over by the upcoming video game of the same name from original creator Jeff Lew, which looks to blend together Just Cause stunt shenanigans, John Woo slo-mo gunfights and the energy of a third-person action game you would’ve found in a bargain bin for the PlayStation 2 in 2002. It’ll hit early access this summer, courtesy of a fresh look from tonight’s Summer Game Fest showcase.
]]>Boheh Game Studio's horror game Slitterhead will release for PC on November 8th 2024, the developers have revealed at this year's Summer Game Fest. They've also popped up a new trailer, which is PS2 as hell, in what I consider to be the best of ways.
]]>Neva is immediately recognisable as the next puzzle platformer from the developers behind Gris thanks to its sweeping, overlapping planes and effortlessly natural watercolour art, which were both on show again in tonight’s Geoffest Summer Game Fest show. I was expecting more eye candy from Neva after its announcement last summer, but what caught me by surprise was all the hacking and slashing that ensues in its second trailer.
]]>It’s easy to draw comparisons between Metaphor: ReFantazio and Persona, given that the upcoming RPG is in the works over at Persona makers Atlus and is built around a similar ‘transform into an awesome-looking robot/creature and do battle’ concept, but so far all those comparisons only serve to highlight just how damn good Metaphor: ReFantazio looks.
]]>Oh, this one looks nice, doesn’t it? Tears Of Metal is a rousing medieval stabathon that sees you retaking your Scottish island from a bunch of bad lads who’ve decided to come have a go, which was a bit silly of them, honestly. It’s a hack n’ slash co-op roguelike with some nifty looking strategy elements and a striking art style, but you can tell most of that from the trailer below:
]]>Taking that famous quote from Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead, then sticking a ‘2’ on the end because that’s how sequels work, No More Room In Hell 2 is an eight player co-op horror from Chivalry 2 bods Torn Banner. It’s been teased for a while now, but now it’s got a release month: this October, 2024. Shamble hungrily toward the trailer below
]]>The way not-E3 games showcases work is that you open with something attention-getting an unexpected, end with the biggest game of the show, and pack the middling and mundane in the middle. Sid Meier's Civilization VII is surely one of the biggest announcements of this year's (in-progress, as I type this) Summer Game Fest 2024, and yet it was buried in that middle section, as unassuming as Sid himself.
]]>Unbroken Studios and Warner Bros’ Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions will launch on 3rd September 2024, as announced at this year’s Summer Game Fest with a new trailer. It’s still a game about the Potterverse’s broomstick-riding sport, allowing players to compete against the computer and each other across various single player and multiplayer modes, and it’s still a new instalment in the world of an author, JK Rowling, who has a track record for transphobia.
]]>Surprise! The next Horizon game after Zero Dawn and Forbidden West is also the next Lego game. Revealed during today's Summer games Fest showcase, Lego Horizon Adventures lets series heroine Aloy romp around with a pal in two-player co-op, and it’s coming to PC on the same day as it hits PlayStation.
]]>This week, the Electronic Wireless Show podcast remembers the recently deceased E3 games show. Unfortunately, all that we can really recall is the occasional watch party, and maybe Keanu Reeves was there at one point? Was mostly just trailers, let’s be honest. Thus we also consider the events that replace it (with a side-chat on this year’s Game Awards), and how we’d design our own glittering showcase o' games.
]]>Shown off at this year's Summer Game Fest showcase, Sand Land is an upcoming RPG from the folks over at Ilca Inc, the developers of One Piece Odyssey, and the creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama. It's an adaptation on one of Toriyama's lesser-known mangas, which features a band of misfits who aim to right the wrongs of a king who's hogged the desert's vital water supply. I got to play it for all of 20 minutes, in a demo that was as stripped back as a grated cactus. Still, I got to sample a bit of roaming about in a tank, one brief stop at a town, an opening of one (1) chest, and some fighting. It seemed okay, I guess? But my main worry is whether its desert is interesting enough to hold people's attention.
]]>Summer Game Fest, Not-E3, Keigh3... whatever you want to call this festival of hype, its annual takeover of the game industry’s collective headspace meant there was only ever going to be one topic for the Electronic Wireless Show podcast this week. Alice even made up for her recording absence by pre-emptively tying Nate to a chair and forcibly making him watch trailers, like that bit in A Clockwork Orange but with "WORLD EXCLUSIVE" flashing up every thirty seconds. Still, we keep it light by focusing on the games we actually like the look of, from The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria to Starfield, Nova Roma to Dungeons of Hinterberg.
]]>I've said it once, and I'll say it several times again. I'm exceedingly pumped for Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown - and so is Prince Of Persia creator, Jordan Mechner. When I visited Ubisoft Montpellier at the end of May, one of things game director Mounir Radi told me about during my visit was how relieved he felt after showing Mechner a very early prototype. And in speaking to Mechner earlier this week about how he feels about The Lost Crown now, he tells me that "what I've seen so far of their modern 2D Metroidvania take on [Prince Of Persia] has got me excited and very eager to play."
]]>When Avowed was announced three years ago, the comparisons to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim were everywhere and inevitable. Skip forward three years to its latest gameplay trailer at this year's Xbox Games Showcase, and Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart has confirmed the game was initially supposed to be the studio's attempt at making their own version of Skyrim.
]]>Following its reveal during Xbox Games Showcase, Capcom have given us a few details on their upcoming game Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess. When it was first announced on Sunday, we knew very little about the game other than it looks very pretty, and we've been eager to know more ever since. The game also opened Capcom's own showcase the next day, where the same trailer was shown and we didn't get any new information on it. Very enlightening. But luckily, some more details have dripped through, which we've summarised below.
]]>LA is an amazing, if tremendously grey place. Everywhere you go, there are grey skyscrapers touching the clouds, so they all look like the concrete's puffing on numerous cigarettes. More often than not, cracked paving gives way to an empty lot or a vacuous car park, often with one guy slumped in a little booth ensuring it stays as grey as possible. So, what better way to commemorate grey than with a look at its president, Armored Core 6: Fires Of Rubicon?
Having seen a 20 minute presentation of the game at this year's Summer Game Fest, I'd say it struck me as an action game through and through, with the most recognisable bits of Souls soldered onto it when it came to, say, tough battles set to erratic rhythms. Honestly, I would say the hands-off demo is exactly what I expected it to be: lots of fast bits of metal slamming into each other in what was, perhaps, the least surprising FromSoftware reveal I've seen. Here's a piecemeal, slightly chaotic breakdown of the whole experience, coming to you from the frazzled mind of a jetlagged man sitting at a wobbly table.
]]>Capcom had a decent showing at their Showcase presentation last night, though it did also deliver the news that the mysterious Pragmata has been delayed once again. The news came in the form of a short trailer that did show off some very brief snippets of gameplay, opening up with an honestly quite fun sequence showing the young girl we've seen in previous trailers making a cute drawing apologising for the indefinite delay.
]]>There is one good dog in video games and his name is Missile the Pomeranian. Fight me. On second thought, maybe don't fight me. My wrists are quite dainty truth be told, and I'd almost certainly end up pegging it in an actual fist fight. If that happened, I might turn into a ghost that's forever doomed to manipulate objects within arm's reach that may or may not change the course of people's history. Actually, maybe you should fight me on this, because a) that sounds pretty rad actually, and b) I've been playing an early version of the freshly announced Steam demo for the excellent Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective this week, and it's reminded me all over again just how good it is to muck about your environment as a disemodied spirit.
]]>Three more Ace Attorney games are heading to PC. During this evening's Capcom Showcase, they announced the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, including 2007's Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, 2013's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies and 2016's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit Of Justice. It'll arrive early 2024 and there's a trailer below.
]]>The Crew Motorfest looks a lot like a Forza Horizon game. It's an open world racer set in O'ahu, Hawaii with street, track and off-road races structured around a festival. Given how good Forza Horizon games are, I am fine with all of these similarities. At tonight's Ubisoft Forward, the third game in The Crew series got a couple of trailers and a relese date: September 14th.
]]>Star Wars: Outlaws, Ubisoft's open world take on the far, far away galaxy, had its cinematic reveal just yesterday. Today during Ubisoft's press conference it got a first, 10-minute gameplay trailer, showing some cover shooting, a speeder bike chase, and spaceship combat. Find it below.
]]>After announcing they'd be bringing a bunch of their games to virtual reality back in the mists of 2020, it looks like Assassin's Creed Nexus is the first and only Ubisoft VR project to have made it to fruition (RIP Splinter Cell VR). Coming to Zuck's Meta Quest 2 headset later this year, Assassin's Creed Nexus will see you slip into the virtual skins of Ezio, Kassandra and Connor in a new story set across Renaissance Italy, Ancient Greece and colonial America. Come and watch the reveal trailer below. Honestly, why does every VR living room look the same in these game reveals?
]]>After its big reveal at Summer Game Fest on Thursday, the internet has not taken kindly to Ubisoft's new Prince Of Persia game. There have been reports that The Lost Crown's gameplay reveal trailer (which currently sits across five separate YouTube channels) is continuing to rack up significantly higher dislikes than likes since it got announced, and many seem to have taken issue with the trailer's accompanying rap song and that it doesn't look like a "true" Prince Of Persia game, whatever the heck that means. It's disappointing to see a game instantly dismissed like this, not least because, as someone who's actually been to Ubisoft Montpellier to play the damn thing, this is arguably the most exciting Prince Of Persia game in years - and certainly more interesting than the troubled Sands Of Time Remake.
]]>After several years missing in action, Ubisoft have put a date on their open world first-person Avatar game. Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora will arrive on PC on December 7th later this year, tonight's Ubisoft Forward showcase confirmed, and cor, it sure is cribbing hard on a lot of scenes from the first film, isn't it? Come have a watch of the new six-minute gameplay trailer below.
]]>Sometimes all you need from a video game is a bit of bloodshed with your pals. And sometimes, all you need from a sequel is the first one, but a bit bigger and bit better. Having spent a few hours with third-person co-op shooter Remnant 2, I reckon it's shaping up to be exactly those two things. It remains unconcerned with telling groundbreaking stories or delivering breathtaking cinema in its fights - it doesn't care. From what I've played, it's more about being the looter shooter for those who care about fine-tuning the consistency of the numbers they're able to extract from their foes.
]]>Let me tell you, being at an Xbox Games Showcase in-person is quite the experience. I'd got my pass, got seated in the theatre and finally had a chance to take in my surroundings. There were lots of folks, obviously, either excitedly chatting or awkwardly swivelling their legs to let people pass. Many wore Xbox jerseys. One man had an Xbox logo shaved into his head. A photographer asked our section to smile, so I managed the pained grin of a British person who encounters a stranger on a walk, the bunching of my cheeks pulling my lips into a curl. Meanwhile, those dressed in their Microsoft jerseys crossed their forearms and hollered.
The countdown flashed up on screen and the crowd started chanting, "five, four, three!", and for a second it felt like I was the only one who hadn't supped from a bowl of green liquid or beat my chest to the rhythm of "Play it day one on Xbox Game Pass". The crowd was on another plane of existence and, for brief moments, I was there with them. At other times I felt the physical fatigue of the trailer train more acutely than ever.
]]>If you're like me and thought that Starfield was just gonna be a shooty shooty space cowboy game, then think again. Revealed during the Starfield Direct that happened just after the Xbox Games Showcase, Bethesda highlighted a number of different playstyles that Starfield will be able to facilitate when it launches this September, including everything from being gung-ho all lasers blazing to a stealthy assassin.
]]>Frank Herbert's weirdo sci-fi epic is a great shout for a survival game and an MMO in many ways. You've got warring factions, you've got a hostile desert planet, you've got canonical giant monsters that can form regular events for players. You got yourself a video game, baybeeeee! Or at least, Funcom do, them being the devs what are making Dune Awakening. In a little spotlight feature at the PC Gaming Show they talked a bit more about the game, and boy, sure seems like a lot of cool stuff is possible in theory.
]]>One big mystery in tonight's Xbox Games Showcase was the announcement of Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess, a new game from Capcom. It's some sort of action game seemingly steeped in Japanese mythology and it has monsters and an awful lot of masks and that's about all we can say for certain right now. But it is very pretty! It looks neat! See for yourself in the trailer below.
]]>I'd rather just saunter around space looking at pretty planets in Starfield, but I guess in a game as big as Bethesda's sci-fi behemoth they want fighty fighty spaceship battles. During the Starfield Direct that ran just after tonight's Xbox Game Showcase, the folks over at Bethesda explained just how ship combat works, and it's more than just holding down the trigger and aiming in the right direction.
]]>Who would have thought a bathtub would make a great little tugboat, but after seeing Critter Cove's protagonist toot his way around a sunny archipelago, it makes perfect sense. Announced during the PC Gaming Show, Critter Cove is an upcoming life-sim where making strange contraptions is all part of the fun. Check out the trailer below.
]]>RPS' coveted game of the year 2022, Vampire Survivors, is getting another update, which means there are now even more reasons why you should play this game if you haven't already. Like, seriously. The big 1.5 Overwhelming Update brings with it new brain-overloading shenanigans which you can see in the trailer below, first revealed at the PC Gaming Show. Oh yeah, and the update is available today (June 11th)!
]]>Of the many Starfield elements deep-dove into during the Xbox Games Showcase's Starfield Direct, the ship building was one that we’d previously seen a decent amount of. Yet it also cemented, in quite gleeful fashion, the design tool’s potential as a foundry for some truly wretched space boats. Just, awful. Consider my interest renewed as a result.
]]>Cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer has their own NotE3 show, don't you know, which this year was packed with almost two and a half hours of fresh(ish) PC gaming announcements. There sure was a lot to get into - and many of the games we saw didn't actually tell us anything new about them. So we've done the hard work for you and rounded up all the biggest and best announcements that caught our eye. So whether you're in need of a quick refresher or you missed it altogether, here are all the most exciting reveals from the PC Gaming Show 2023 that are worth knowing about.
]]>Atlus have become a Persona factory in recent years, producing not only the mainline urban fantasy RPGs but spin-offs like Persona 5 Strikers and the recently announced Persona 5 Tactica. Thankfully they're working on something entirely new, too.
During tonight's Xbox Games Showcase, Atlus announced Metaphor: ReFantazio, a new "high fantasy" RPG from Persona 5's director and character designer.
]]>Okay, so you're not being chased by an army of murderous robots that are only seconds behind you, but you're still jumping around trying to find a new home for the last of humanity who managed to escape a doomed planet. Earthless is a roguelike deckbuilder from Blackbird Interactive, although you wouldn't know it from the cinematic teaser trailer shown at the PC Gaming Show tonight, which was heavy on the dramatic yet hopeful voiceover. As the captain of the fleet, your job is to lead everyone to a safe harbour.
]]>I honestly thought that 11 Bit Studios would have a tough time making Frostpunk 2 stand out from the original game, but from the looks of the sequel's new trailer, it certainly stands out all right. It looks like a very mean game, and I'm sure I'm going to love every second of it when it comes out, which was confirmed as 2024 during the PC Gaming Show. You can check out the trailer below.
]]>If owning forty thousand hammers sounds ludicrous to you, come have a peek at the new trailer for Warhammer Age Of Sigmar: Realms Of Ruin. This accompanies news that the fantasy RTS will run a multiplayer open beta test over the weekend of July 7-10. That will let every orrible scrote in to play 1v1 matches as either the Orruk Kruleboyz or Stormcast Eternals. That's basically Orks vs. Space Marines except their swords aren't chainsaws, okay.
]]>Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty got a new trailer and release date earlier this evening. Developers CD Projekt Red then followed up by sharing the expansion's system requirements, which includes a GeForce GTX1060 6GB or Radeon RX 580 8GB in order to hit 1080p at 30fps as minimum spec.
CDPR also say they're amending the system requirements to the base game and will no longer supporting hard disk drives.
]]>When Mimimi Games announced their latest stealth strategy game Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew back in January, I was pretty darn stoked. You can also imagine my excitement when they said it would be out later this year, too. Not in 2024, or several years down the line, but in the next 12 months. Absolutely my favourite thing in the world, reveals like that. Can't get enough of them. So picture how I must be feeling right now, having just heard Shadow Gambit's actual release date at tonight's PC Gaming Show. Time to mark your calendars, folks. We'll be stealth murdering our way around its Lost Caribbean on August 17th.
]]>The studio behind Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included today announced their next survival game, a sandbox spaceship game named Dread Pilots. Klei Entertainment this time will send us into a hostile pocket dimension known as the Dread, aimed with only our wits and our wee ship. It's on you to explore, trade, steal, upgrade, avoid, befriend, ally, and murder your way to survival. The game is due to enter early access next year so for now, content yourself with the announcement trailer below.
]]>If you ever became Grand Champion in the combat arena in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, then you will recognise the little cone-headed gimp who made a surprise cameo in tonight's Starfield deep dive, streamed as part of the Xbox Games Showcase for not-E3. In the case of the upcoming space-themed mega-RPG, he'll attach to your character if you choose the trait Hero Worshipped. He still has stupid hair in Starfield, too.
]]>When solo developer Gareth Damian Martin started teasing they were working on another project together with Citizen Sleeper's composer Amos Roddy and character artist Guillaume Singelin last month, I didn't even dare to hope that it might be another Citizen Sleeper game. I adored the first one - and even picked it for May's RPS Game Club - but the prospect of a sequel seemed almost too good to be true. Happily, tonight's PC Gaming Show brought the news I was waiting for. After a dramatic animated trailer reveal, I'm happy to report that Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is indeed a real thing, and I spoke to Damian Martin earlier this week to find out all about it.
]]>The Roman Empire may have fallen long ago but Rome has stood for almost three millenia. Think you can do better? Newly announced citybuilder Nova Roma will challenge you to start your own new Roman city away from the crumbling Empire, trying to not just survive but thrive, pleasing both your citizens and the gods. It's made by Lion Shield, the studio behind 2017's lovely medieval fantasy citybuilder Kingdoms And Castles. Check out Nova Roma's announcement trailer below!
]]>As promised, Bethesda gave us an extended look at Starfield this evening as part of a dedicated presentation attatched to Microsoft's larger not-E3 showcase. Alongside a fresh look at the game's 1000 planets, combat and skill trees, we were given a closer peek at arguably the most important part of the whole game: its character creator.
Described as the "simplest character creator" the team have ever made, Starfield will let you dig into the finer details of your space captain's face, right down to their teeth for reasons I can't quite work out yet. An improvement on the creators found in previous Bethesda games, there's nothing here that looks particularly innovative compared to other open-world games of this ilk. What's interesting is that this time around, the team have used the in-game tool to create every last one of Starfield's NPCs.
]]>What happens when some folks who previously worked at Blizzard on games including Warcraft 3 and StarCraft 2 go independent with a new studio to make a new real-time strategy game? They make a game which looks quite a lot like 'Warcraft 3 meets StarCraft 2'. That's Stormgate, and you can see that for yourself in the first gameplay trailer, below.
]]>The gang behind Exo One, a game about drinking in dramatic sci-fi vistas while flying and rolling a strange craft across alien planets, have announced a spin-off. It is not a spin-off I would have expected. Exo Rally Championship is an off-road rally racing game where you'll zoom across exoplanets in a six-wheeled car with manoeuvring thrusters. Soar over low-gravity worlds! Dodge through a meteor shower! Gasp at the pretty landscapes! Have a look in the trailer below.
]]>Looks like I won't be regretting every in-game decision I've ever made with Stoic's new game Towerborne. It's an action RPG that looks much more light-hearted than the studio's previous Viking-ish trilogy The Banner Saga, where I killed every character I loved and made a host of bad choices. Announced during the Xbox Game Showcase at this year's not-E3, Towerborne looks much more family-friendly. Which is lucky because you'll be wanting to grab family members, as it's also a co-op adventure. Check out the trailer below.
]]>You'll be meeting lots of NPCs on your jaunt around space in Starfield, but during the dedicated Starfield presentation as part of not-E3, we got a look at one group of rag-tag space folks in more detail - Constellation.
Described in the showcase as a team that's sort of a "mythical group" and "the last true explorers in the galaxy." Their whole deal is that they're trying to grapple with humanity's biggest questions and are on big ol' space quest to find answers. They're concerned with weird artifacts, ancient alien intelligence, and a bunch of other space anthropological happenings.
]]>A new Yakuza 8 trailer reveals its full official name, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, as well as a surprising new location. Seems our boy Ichiban is off to the USA, without his pants. Even he didn't expect that. Watch the trailer below for careful object placement to hide his shame.
]]>"So why go this big with Starfield?" asks Bethesda Softworks' lead landscape artist Matt Carofano at the beginning of a segment in tonight's Starfield Direct. "Because we want to give you freedom on a galactic level," is the unsatisfying response.
Starfield features over 1000 planets to visit, each procedurally generated upon your approach but populated with handcrafted elements. Your "freedom" upon landing on these planets - many of which seem near-barren - is whether you spend your time doing some quests, 'surveying' the local flora and fauna, or shooting rocks with your space laser.
]]>What's a captain without a crew? At the combined Xbox Games Showcase slash Starfield Direct tonight, Bethesda did a deep dive on a few aspects of their upcoming space RPG Starfield - including the companion system. Although, given that you assign them to different tasks on your ship and various outposts, it might be more appropriate to call them "employees". Although again, you can romance some of them, which is definitely an HR issue.
]]>I've been itching to get my hands on League Of Geeks' new roguelike colony sim ever since I first clapped eyes on its 70s anime-infused visuals back in November last year. The good news is that you'll soon be able to do exactly that, as tonight's PC Gaming Show confirmed that Jumplight Odyssey will be getting a Steam Next Fest demo on June 19th. That's just over a week away at time of writing, and having played an early version of that demo myself, I'm pleased to report that it's shaping up very nicely indeed - even if my first attempt ended in catastrophic disaster after I was boarded by half a dozen crews of angry green alien lads.
]]>I do love me a game from The Chinese Room, and Still Wakes The Deep looks to be a right old trip. Announced during the Xbox Games Showcase at this year's not-E3, this first-person horror adventure casts you as a worker on an off-shore industrial oil rig and something seems to have slithered aboard from the depths. Check out the trailer below for some major chills.
]]>Don't Nod are really out here publishing games aren't they? They've already got their ghost-hunting RPG Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden on the go, and there's also the recently released Harmony: The Fall Of Reverie, and now they've announced dizzying climbing adventure Jusant. You can watch the trailer below, but if you're scared of heights then maybe give this one a miss. Hey, I'm just looking out for you.
]]>I love magical realist Southern Gothics. Kentucky Route Zero, Norco, and Where The Water Tastes Like Wine are some of my favourite games, so Compulsion Games' South Of Midnight immediately has my attention. Announced during the Xbox Games Showcase 2023 as part of not-E3, this new action-adventure looks like it's got major bite and you can check out the trailer below.
]]>Arguably the main event of this year's NotE3 and Summer Game Fest season, tonight's Xbox Games Showcase had more fresh game announcements than you can shake a Series X at. If you missed it or just want a handy recap of every new trailer that went down, we've got you covered. Here's everything that was announced at the Xbox Games Showcase 2023.
]]>2017's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice did well critically and commercially, and it wasn't a huge surprise when Senua's Saga: Hellblade II was revealed three years back. It's been a little while since we heard more from it, but a cinematic trailer cropped up at tonight's Xbox Games Showcase, and wouldn't you know it, but we got a release window for 2024.
]]>Avowed was announced back in 2020 when a brief teaser trailer made it look like Obsidian's take on Skyrim. A gameplay trailer shown during this evening's Xbox Games Showcase did little to contradict that notion, aside from the non-snowy setting, I suppose, making it seem like Obsidian's take on Oblivion instead.
]]>When Clockwork Revolution's announcement trailer started playing in the Xbox Games Showcase today, I almost thought was a follow-up to BioShock Infinite. An opulent oversaturated city with a hanging railway, heaps of gadgets, a taunting antagonist, a protagonist with reality-altering powers, and a giant baddy with a gunarm? Surely BioShock? Nope! It's a new first-person steampunk RPG from InXile Entertainment, the makers of Torment: Tides Of Numenera. And two of its lead developers worked at Troika on their steampunk RPG, Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura. Come have a watch.
]]>I've spent around an hour with Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, the one and only expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 starring your boy Idris Elba. Yes, I saw him in the game, and yes, he fits in great. But what really struck me about the new DLC was how it had morphed the overall combat into a chunkier, more flavoursome affair. Whereas before your guns had about as much impact as the buzz of your phone in silent mode, they now feel like they've got some real weight behind each trigger pull. The new area of Dogtown is pretty sweet, too.
]]>It's probably quite difficult, after you've mapped more or less the entire planet, to work out what to add to a Microsoft Flight Simulator sequel. The answer turns out to be: jobs.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was revealed at tonight's Xbox Showcase and it'll include the ability to not only fly all sorts of aerial vehicles, but to fly them with purpose - whether an air ambulance, aerial firefighting, crop dusting, hot air ballooning, or about a dozen other roles.
]]>I'm a fan of Monkey Island, as many of you know, and so hearing the opening bars of the Monkey Island theme during the Xbox Games Showcase tonight was an instant little serotonin booster. Turns out Sea Of Thieves is finally doing the most obvious pirate crossover ever with a free three-part Tall Tale expansion called The Legend Of Monkey Island. Featuring many of your favourite Monkey Island characters (including Murray the demonic talking skull), the first part of The Legend Of Monkey Island will arrive on July 20th - and will be on Game Pass on day one.
]]>A new trailer for Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty announces a release date of September 26th. It also gives a glimpse of what's waiting for V as she ventures into the brand new district of Dogtown to rescue the president. I hope so much for a gang of wild skateboarders. The trailer also introduces us to the new character played by Idris Elba (Stringer Bell in The Wire, Luther in Luther, Knuckles in Sonic The Hedgehog 2).
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