February 2023

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League got a lengthy demonstration at tonight's PlayStation State Of Play event, which clarified several things about what kind of game Rocksteady's long-awaited return to the DC Universe really is. It turns out it's a game with lots of floaty air combat, lots of noise, lots of loot and gear scores and weapon classes, and with a battle pass (but for cosmetics only). Plus there will be DLC to add new characters post-launch.

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The next game from the developers of Tetris Effect and Rez Infinite is called Humanity, and it's an action-puzzle game in which you control a Shiba Inu and try to guide crowds of people around obstacle-strewn greybox levels. A bit like Lemmings, maybe, but presumably with a surprising emotional resonance. Watch the trailer below.

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Forza Horizon 5 announced its second expansion this evening as planned. Rally Adventure will launch on March 29th and is entirely focused on getting your wheels dirty. You'll find the announcement trailer below.

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As I write this, Sons Of The Forest is the third most played game on Steam with 265,000 concurrent players. That's not bad for a game that came out a little over three hours ago. It's so popular in fact, it might have crashed Steam.

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Earlier this month, we asked you to vote for your favourite strategy games of all time to celebrate the launch (and glorious return) of several strategy classics this month, including Relic's WW2 RTS Company Of Heroes 3, Blue Byte's The Settlers: New Allies and Cyanide's fantasy Warhamball Blood Bowl 3. And cor, I've never seen such love for individual expansions and total conversion mods among mainline RTS games and 4Xs. As with all strategy games, however, there can only be one victor - and you can find out what that single strategy game to rule them all is right here. Here are your 50 favourite strategy games of all time, as voted for by you, the RPS readership.

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There’s a touch of poetry to the way Wild Hearts carves so liberally from Monster Hunter. After all, Monster Hunter is a series about an unknown newcomer toppling ancient beasts, chopping up their best bits to create weapons and armour. Forget sleeves, Wild Hearts wears its inspirations as a complete set of clothing crafted from the bones, fur, and teeth of Capcom’s increasingly popular series. Inevitably these materials may feel lesser than the whole from which they were harvested, but they are worn proudly and with confidence nevertheless.

Besides, as a rare challenger to Monster Hunter, Wild Hearts is clearly aware of the difficulties involved in trying to pull off something new. Perhaps this is why Omega Force’s monster battler is so welcoming to newcomers. Finally, here is a game that is willing to teach a player why this long-running genre is held in such high regard. Wild Hearts is the perfect entry point for anyone who has ever dreamed of being a Monster Hunter Liker. A bombastic, brilliant good time that’s held back by frequent, frustrating performance issues on PC.

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You know it’s a great turn in The Pale Beyond when only five of your crew are freezing, two have frostbite, and one has scurvy. After all the struggles and dangers I’ve been through trying to keep my ship’s crew alive in the bone-biting cold of the arctic tundra, that’s definitely a success in my book.

It’s easy to describe Bellular Studio’s survival sim as just ‘Frostpunk on a ship’, but in some ways that’s pretty accurate: you’re the leader of a group trying to survive in a harsh frozen wasteland. But it’s also a comparison that falls short in plenty of other ways. Sure, the engine of this survival sim might run the same as Frostpunk’s, but it’s buried deep in a handcrafted hull. With an overarching story that deals with the drama and despair of survival, together with a cast of underdog characters whose personalities and flaws fuel your determination to keep them alive, The Pale Beyond is much more human than its steampunk counterpart.

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The devs behind Command & Conquer Remaster are releasing their The Great War: Western Front on March 30th, but for now they’re showing off exactly how the WW1 RTS works in a new developer diary. The ‘Commanding The Western Front’ video has several leads devs from Petroglyph walking us through aspects of the campaign, from the macro decisions of Field Commander Mode, to the tactical RTS skirmishes in Theatre Mode.

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This week on The Electronic Wireless Show podcast our interest was piqued by new trailers for a Jesus simulator and a politics in hell strategy game. We ask ourselves: why are there so many hell-themed games and so few heavenly ones? Is it blasphemy? What would our pitch for a game set in heaven be? (Spoilers for that last one: there's a lot of admin involved). We also chat about what we've been playing this week, and Nate orchestrates a mini-game pitchathon that goes at least somewhat off the rails.

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My backlog is practically overflowing at this point, hence my New Year's resolution to avoid buying a game until I’d actually play it. But, every now and then, an especially deep discount will catch my eye, my bad impulses wake up, and I spend a few quid on something I won’t touch for six months (seriously, Abzu has been floating on my hard drive for years.) My New Year's resolution won’t hold out for much longer, as Valve have announced their schedule for all of 2023’s Steam Fests and sales events.

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Warhammer 40k: Darktide seemed like a recipe for certain success when it launched late last year. Developers Fatshark were taking the formula established in their co-op horde shooters Vermintide, throwing in some beefy melee, and moving it over to the 40k universe. Fans were less than happy with the end result, pointing toward technical issues, randomness in the endgame, and a lack of crafting systems, which Fatshark are hoping to fix in today’s update.

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A new month is on the horizon which can mean only one thing: more gaming freebies. Amazon Prime members can snag seven free games throughout March, with 90s RPG Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition leading the pack, followed by the cute puzzler (and undercover horror game) I Am Fish. New games are available every Thursday, so scribble that day into your calendars.

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A lot of folks, including our Liam, have been having a grand old time hunting Japanese fantasy beasts in Wild Hearts. Great! Less great is that it still runs like concrete on PC, even after a performance-focused patch that developers Omega Force had detailed even before the game had formally released.

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When it comes to ultrawide gaming monitors, curved VA panels are very much the standard - but despite their benefits in terms of immersiveness, not everyone prefers them. Therefore, I thought I'd highlight this deal on Gigabte's M34WQ, a flat 34-in monitor that hits the popular 3440x144 144Hz spec and is today $20 off with a coupon code at Newegg to hit its lowest ever price.

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Honor has heavily discounted one of its MagicBook 16 laptops at its UK store, with a Ryzen 5 5600H model with 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and a 16-in 1080p 144Hz screen going for £499.99. That's the best laptop I've seen at this price as of late, and while this laptop is designed more for work than play, its integrated RX Vega graphics are still capable of playing older titles.

The MagicBook 16 initially debuted at £849.99 (and still costs that much on Amazon UK), and has since dropped to £549.99. To get today's £499.99 price, use code AGOBEYOND50 at the checkout.

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UPDATE: Bethesda have now confirmed the news in a statement posted on Twitter, saying, "We thank him for his work as a creative mentor to young developers." They continued to say, "We wish Mikami-san well in the future and are excited by what lies ahead fpr the talented developers of Tango."

Original story: Tango GameWork’s co-founder and studio head Shinji Mikami is reportedly leaving the Evil Within company “in the coming months.” This comes courtesy of TrueAchievements who saw and verified a company-wide email sent to employees by Bethesda’s VP of development Todd Vaughn. "I am writing today to let you know that studio head Shinji Mikami has decided to leave Tango Gameworks in the coming months," Vaughn said. "Mikami-san has been a creative leader and supportive mentor to young developers at Tango for 12 years through his work.”

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Hogwarts Legacy is a vast, incredibly captivating open world adventure that is overflowing with all manner of activities and lore. Some of that fascinating lore comes in the form of easter eggs, that hearken back most often to the beloved Harry Potter film franchise. While some are perhaps less obvious, there are plenty more that are all too memorable to possibly forget. With so many to choose from throughout the game, we carefully picked the easter eggs that are by far worthiest of mention. Here is our list of the top 15 easter eggs in Hogwarts Legacy.

It’s safe to say the Dead Space Remake was a critical and commercial success, and its publisher EA seems to be gauging whether people want its sequels to receive the same treatment.

In a post to Twitter made by Dillon Rogers on Feb. 24, it was revealed that the company has been sending out surveys to those who have played the recently released horror remake. Two of the questions it asks pertain to whether or not those taking the survey would like to see similar remakes done for Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3. Responses can range from not at all interested to extremely interested.

The twitter post has since made its way to Reddit, with many discussing their own hopes and excitement for remakes of the other titles in the series. Others have even begun to discuss the viability of a remake for Dead Space 3, and whether or not it would be more worthwhile to give the game a complete re-do instead.

It should be noted, however, that these surveys don’t show that remakes for either title are in development, and EA has made no announcements of official plans to release such remakes. If anything, the surveys prove that EA and the Dead Space Remake’s developer Motive have yet to officially begin development on the titles and will hold off on taking such action until the data from these surveys has been compiled and analyzed.

In the meantime, Dead Space fans can play the Dead Space Remake on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. For more on the game, we’ve got a plethora of related articles down below.

Whether you love licensed skins or not, there’s no denying that Fortnite collabs bring a lot of money and attention to the game. There’s already an abundance of collabs, and Epic doesn’t seem to be slowing down either. Some fans argue that they’d rather see original skins, rather than yet another superhero. On the other side of things, it’s still pretty awesome to queue up as your favorite characters, or even take part in events that almost seem too grand for Fortnite. While some collabs simply put out iconic skins in the shop, others have come with in-game events and new weapons. Out of all of the Fortnite collabs out thus far, here are some of the most memorable.

Sons of the Forest, the follow-up to 2014’s spooky survival horror game from developer Endnight Games, was among the most anticipated releases for 2023, but few could have foreseen exactly how big a hit it would be.

Since its release on Steam early access on Feb. 23, Endnight has revealed the full extent of its reach; within 24 hours, it has eclipsed 2 million in sales.

For context on how big a deal this is, its predecessor surpassed five million sales by the end of 2018. Though this number will slow after the initial influx of early access adopters, it is on track to completely obliterate the trail laid down by the original Forest within the year.

The PlayStation Portable is one of the most underrated systems out there. The games supported on it were great, the system felt great to play on, and it was a fantastic option in the handheld market that consisted of the Nintendo DS and its later iterations. Since the PlayStation Store for PSP shut down in 2022, finding the best games can be difficult. However, if you can find any of these top 10 PSP games in a retro game store, they’re worth picking up.

After a long wait, Sons of the Forest is finally here, throwing a new wave of players into the survival-horror trenches to fight off hangry cannibals on a deserted island. Much like the previous game, The Forest, the protagonist crash lands on the said island with no idea what’s going on and must bust out every tool of the trade to survive.

Again, much like the first title, it appears that the opening crash landing sequence is different for everyone. Players in the game’s Steam community have shared their varying introduction sequences leading to three different starting points.

**This post will contain minor spoilers regarding the opening sequence of Sons of the Forest. If you haven’t played the title yet, come back when you have. Otherwise, proceed at your own risk.**

The story of Sons of the Forest throws players into a special agent part of a task force team sent to discover the whereabouts of a few rich billionaires who have seemingly gone missing. The opening sequence sees the player en route to the deserted island while going over mission intel until they are abruptly shut down. While no one exactly knows the science, it seems to be related to how fast players progress through the mission briefing that leads to a unique spawn point.

Hot off the heels of the announcement that the sprawling roleplaying game Baldur’s Gate 3 has a full release date — coming to PC and PlayStation 5 on August 31, 2023 — it has been revealed that an Xbox version is something that the team has in the works, as well.

Taking to Reddit, Larian Studios threw a bone to hungry Microsoft fans, albeit with a caveat that an official announcement was being held off due to technical issues.

As per the post from community manager Molly Carroll, the biggest hurdle they are trying to clear at this time is with getting split-screen co-op to work correctly on the system, and that they will not make any announcements until they feel like they have the matter under hand, “because we don’t want to get peoples hopes up until we’re sure we can deliver.”

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania may not have been the critically acclaimed movie that many MCU fans were hoping for, but that’s not to say that the film doesn’t have plenty of stuff for viewers to chew on. This has been evident from the get-go as the film officially brings Kang into the MCU, who is set to become the next Thanos-level threat.

So without further ado, let’s get right into the list as these are the ten most pressing questions that we have after watching Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

***Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Spoilers Below***

Returnal on PC

First released on the PlayStation 5 back in 2021, Housemarque’s AAA roguelike, Returnal, blew my expectations out of the water with its blend of hard-hitting action, strategic depth, and an atmosphere of dread that is quite unlike anything out there. Fast forward two years, and the game now finds its way to the PC platform courtesy of Climax Studios, and the work put into this port has Returnal shining brighter than before, an irresistible call back into the darkness of repeated death and learning.

Weaving together a blend of swift third-person action, platforming, and roguelike progression, it stars ASTRA scout Selene, now trapped in a seemingly neverending loop of death and rebirth on the planet of Atropos. The very first time you discover the lifeless body of a previous explorer, Returnal starts to kick into gear. Really, this intoxicating adventure only gets better and better with each run, albeit sometimes dependent on your luck.

The official Genshin Impact Twitter account has finally announced that both Baizhu and Kaveh are coming to the game. The two Dendro characters don’t have an official release date, but speculation and rumors point toward a 3.6 banner release.

Kaveh’s introduction went through a bit of information that players already knew, like the fact that he’s an architect. What players didn’t know was that he’s considered one of the best ones in Sumeru, which is interesting considering he lives at Alhaitham’s house in the current storyline. 

Being a parent is hard, but being a better parent than Kazuya Mishima from Tekken is very easy. Judging another person’s parenting skills is ordinarily off-limits, but he is such a scumbag that it is totally fair game. Let’s be real — trying to kill your son and running an international mega-corporation committing crimes against the world on a daily basis is not a great look.

His son, Jin Kazama, has had his own moral shortcomings and villainous acts of murder, but these are clearly just cries for help. We are not qualified parenting experts, but Kazuya Mishima is not qualified to be a father either, so here we are. We want to offer the martial artist some healthy suggestions of different activities he can do with Jin to make up for the years of trauma. As it stands, he is the world’s worst father, but here are 10 ways that Kazuya from Tekken could be a better dad.

Harry Potter fans had been waiting for a game that could fulfill their dreams of exploring the wizarding world, and their wishes were finally answered in the form of Hogwarts Legacy. The game has tried its best to be faithful to the novels and movies by bringing many vital aspects of the series to life. Although the title has done many great things, here are the top 10 ways Hogwarts Legacy lets you live out your wizarding fantasies.

Hogwarts Legacy is breaking records for Warner Bros., amassing an incredible $850 million in sales within the first two weeks of the game’s release. Variety broke the news from an earnings call earlier today and included a bit of information from Warner Bros. Games CEO David Zaslav.

According to Zaslav, the company has plans to take the success of the franchise as far as it can go despite the controversy surrounding Hogwarts Legacy due to comments made by author JK Rowling and allegedly anti-semitic themes. In fact, the president of Warner Bros. Games David Haddad went so far as to say that the company was overjoyed with player responses to Hogwarts Legacy.

Hogwarts Legacy itself is full of things to do that players are clearly enjoying. There’s plenty of end-game content and random things to collect like fashion items and even magical beasts to keep players going for way longer than the main story of the game. 

This wasn’t the first record Hogwarts Legacy has smashed. The game broke Twitch viewership records and became the title with the most concurrent viewers on the platform. The surprising thing was that the game wasn’t even released at that time – it was only available to those who had bought the Deluxe Edition. 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is much more serious compared to earlier entries in the series. The movie goes for a thoughtful approach since Kang the Conquerer’s nefarious intentions have to do with the multiverse. As a result, the villain, Scott Lang, and the rest of the characters go through arcs that change them. A lot of their development is reflected through dialogue, which makes the film’s quotes worth looking into.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania also builds tension through foreboding words, letting viewers know that something big is coming up. While there are many special effects and action sequences that entertain, it’s the quotes that convey the characters and the film’s depth. Taking a deeper look into their words allows fans to appreciate the storytelling better. So, to that end, here are the 10 best quotes in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Since the release of director Peter Jackson’s universally acclaimed Lord of the Rings trilogy, the beloved franchise has been a fervent part of the pop culture zeitgeist, raking in a dizzying $2.9 billion. Legend has it, if you listen closely, you can always hear the jingling of Peter’s Jackson’s rightfully earned mountain of gold coins. That mountain is likely to grow even more, now that new Lord of the Rings films are on the way. We just hope they are better than the last trilogy.

During a call discussing Warner Bros. Discovery’s Q2 2022 earnings, CEO David Zaslav dropped the bombshell announcement of a new set of films, as part of a multi-year agreement between New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Embracer Group AB’s Middle Earth Enterprises. The exact number of new films has not been disclosed, but it is worth noting that history shows the series has a penchant for trilogies.

After the initial Lord of the Rings trilogy concluded, winning 17 Academy Awards, including Best Picture for The Return of the King, it was a no-brainer that the series ought to continue to exist in the medium in some form or fashion. Thus, The Hobbit trilogy was born; unfortunately, this prequel trilogy was not nearly as praised, either by critics or fans.

Thanks to a Warner Bros. Discovery earnings report, it has been officially confirmed that there is indeed a twelfth Mortal Kombat game in the works. This news comes a few months after Ed Boon himself teased that the next game coming out of NetherRealm Studios would be either Injustice 3 or Mortal Kombat 12.

The only other piece of information that was revealed by Warner Bros. Discovery is that the next game in the signature fighting game series will release sometime in 2023. Seeing as how NetherRealm has yet to make any official announcement themselves, it is likely that gamers won’t be able to get their hands on the game until very late in the year, although this, of course, remains unconfirmed.

The plot of Mortal Kombat 12 still remains under wraps, but it should be interesting to see what’s in store for the game’s story mode as the ending showcased a new blank slate for the franchise. Also, those who played the story DLC pack were treated to two more endings that take place after the standard game’s conclusion. Yet whether or not this will impact the story of Mortal Kombat 12 hasn’t been announced, so fans will have to wait and see.

It’s not surprising that Warner Bros. and NetherRealm are going to release a new game, as Mortal Kombat 11 was generally well-received and had good sales numbers. Not to mention that Warner Bros. is also planning on releasing a sequel to the 2021 Mortal Kombat film, which means that they likely want a new and fresh game to help get audiences back into the brutal world before the new movie comes out.

A new (and potentially final) trailer has been aired for Lightfall, the upcoming annual expansion for Destiny 2 courtesy of Bungie alongside PlayStation’s most recent State of Play. Prior to this, the most recent expansion was the Witch Queen which arrived on February 22, 2022. It arrives as the next chapter in the Light and Darkness saga.

The trailer itself debuted at 2023’s first State of Play presentation, ahead of the release date of February 28, 2023. The expansion will see guardians gaining a second darkness power, this time in the form of Strand, as well as giving us a lot more time with the nefarious Witness. Lightfall also promises to bring a multitude of long overdue quality-of-life changes, and will arrive simultaneously with Destiny 2’s 20th season — Season of Defiance.

As expected of any event like that, the February 2023 State of Play from PlayStation had plenty of fun looks at upcoming titles. If you’re considering picking up the PSVR2, a handful of VR titles might convince you to get the new hardware.

Below is everything shown off during the livestream that we didn’t cover during the show.

Green Hell VR

The survival game Green Hell will be getting a VR version some time this year. Players will have to fend for themselves in the jungle that is teeming with tigers and crocodiles. You’ll have to make your own shelter and tools to work towards solving the mystery of your wife’s disappearance that brought you to this place.

Green Hell VR will be out later this year.

As a part of the Sony State of Play on Feb. 23, developer and publisher Larian Studios has provided a full release date (and new platform) for the upcoming Baldur’s Gate 3.

The long awaited RPG will be seeing its full release on August 31, 2023. While originally slated to release only for PC and Mac, the State of Play also confirmed the game will be available for PlayStation 5 on the same day in August.

The announcement coincided with a brand new trailer, providing viewers with several snippets of gameplay, a showcase of the character customization on offer, and glimpses of the major players in the game’s storyline.

Set in the Dungeons & Dragons setting of the Forgotten Realms, Baldur’s Gate 3 initially launched as an early access title in October of 2020 and has been regularly receiving content and fine-tuning of the experience since. Its most recent major update was December’s Holy Knight patch, which added the paladin class, increased the level cap, and introduced new gameplay systems.

It also has some rather large shoes to fill given its status as a sequel to the BioWare-developed (and much beloved) Baldur’s Gate 2, which is now considered a classic RPG from the turn of the century. If you’d like to view the new trailer, you can do so in full below. Notably, it features voiceover work from none other than actor J.K. Simmons, who will be taking on the role of General Ketheric Thorm.

That rumbling you hear is the sound of Street Fighter 6 rapidly approaching release. Sony brought the goods in the Feb. 2023 State of Play with a brand new trailer for the fighter, this time featuring three unique characters in action. We are happy to report that there’s bears and baddies abound in the newest Street Fighter 6 trailer.

Zangief, everyone’s favorite Russian daddy– I mean bear– I mean wrestler is back. His grapples and wrestling moves look absolutely stone cold stunning with the game’s new graphical engine. The trailer gives us a glimpse at his Level 2 and 3 Super Arts, the Cyclone Lariat and Bolshoi Storm Buster, respectively, complete with his beloved goofy nature. Welcome back, zaddy.

Meanwhile, the trailer also gave us a look at the newcomer Lily, representing the Thunderfoot tribe where series familiar T. Hawk hails from. Lily brings two war clubs to the battle, complete with some winding moves making for a display of attacks that are equal parts dizzying and adorable. Fans of the series will be glad to see her exciting Breezing Hawk and Raging Typhoon Super Arts moves. Eagle-eyed fans may even notice the Raging Typhoon being very similar to T. Hawk’s own style.

Lastly, the State of Play trailer showed series staple and certified baddie Cammy reporting in. Fans of Cammy, such as Academy Award-nominee Jamie Lee Curtis, will be glad to know that much of Cammy’s moveset remains — but suitably amped up for the breathtaking new title. Her Killer Bee Spin and Delta Red Assault Super Arts moves highlight her penchant for being as beautiful as she is deadly.