March 2023

One of the best things a survival game can do is make you want to share your latest experiences with your family and friends At this, Sons Of The Forest succeeds in grand fashion. Often I found myself pausing the game so I could go find my brother and tell him about the latest Big Thing that had just happened. Some of the time, it's even for the right reasons. Perhaps I'd spotted a group of cannibals adopting some startlingly intelligent behaviour. Or maybe one of my NPC companions had just done something particularly endearing in front of me.

Or, more likely, I'd witnessed another example of the incredible jankiness which, like the island's flesh-nibbling denizens, loves to raid and pillage its way through nearly every aspect of the game. Perhaps I'd just cut down a tree and watched it soar high into the air, glitching all over the place like some demonic new type of tree mutant. Maybe Kelvin had just taken my instruction to gather logs a bit too literally, and deconstructed the entire west side of my house while I wasn't looking.

Sons Of The Forest's great strength is its ability to utterly transport you into its threatening, unsettling, but genuinely beautiful world. It quickly builds up the player's trust until they're ready to wholeheartedly buy into what at times feels like the next generation of open-world survival and crafting games. But then, at least in its current Early Access state, it breaks that trust just as quickly with a melange of unintuitive systems, game-breaking bugs, and a painful lack of content that makes one of the most gorgeous environments in games feel awfully hollow after a while.

Final Fantasy 16 is looking fab according to the latest round of previews, but that doesn't do us much good if it doesn't come to PC. The JRPG sequel is a six-month exclusive on PlayStation 5 and the PC version doesn't have a release date.

During a recent interview, producer Naoki Yoshida said that it definitely won't come to PC as soon as those six months are up, but that they "would like to release it eventually."

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Survival sequel Sons Of The Forest is doing extremely well, selling 2 million copies in 24 hours. There have been a handful of gripes from players, though, and one of them just got resolved in the latest hotfix. You can now add hotkeys to weapons in your inventory.

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IO Interactive, the developers of the Hitman series, have begun development of a "bold new online fantasy RPG". It currently has no name other than 'Project Fantasy', but IOI say that it's inspired by their loveof Fighting Fantasy books and they're recruiting developers to work on it.

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After trailers for Final Fantasy 16 were released last year, some questions were asked about its predominantly white cast. Those questions were answered by producer Naoki Yoshida in a fashion he correctly predicted would be "disappointing to some".

Yoshida has now revisited the question during the latest round of Final Fantasy 16 press.

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I'm still not entirely sure if I'm playing Phantom Brigade right. According to its internal clock, battles usually take less than a minute. That time is divided into five-second chunks during which you're shown what the enemy will do, and must use that to coordinate your own mechs, placing their orders on a visible timeline. You finish your turn by hitting a button that makes everyone go at once for a few explosive moments.

In practice, behind those few seconds are an eternity of theorising, testing, and tweaking. There's probably a metaphor in there somewhere about writing, video editing, or catering. The result is a game that's taken me absolutely ages, but whose numbers suggest I'm supposed to be blasting through without a care.

I am enjoying it a lot, despite some frustration.

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Over the last few weeks I've spent a number of hours with Honkai: Star Rail's closed beta, and it certainly seems that MiHoYo's upcoming free-to-play RPG is hoping to capture a similar audience to Genshin Impact. Star Rail's turn-based battles and JRPG leanings might be a bit of a departure from Genshin's open-world adventuring, but it's definitely, 100%, without a doubt, anime as heck. Oh, and very gacha. There's a lot of currencies. So many currencies. Still, I think it's shaping up to be a decent time.

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I’m a sucker for well-hidden video game easter eggs, from Psychonauts 2’s strange mpreg cutscene to the ability to play as a baby in Mount & Blade 2, they're all great they’re great. But it’s all too easy to walk past easter eggs without knowing they were even there. I’ve probably waved off multiple fun secrets, mistaking them for lore I didn’t understand or a questline I haven’t gotten to. So, my pea-sized brain enjoyed this video of game designer Steve Lee interviewing the devs behind Skyrim and Fallout as they reveal some dev secrets behind those games - including a cool egg.

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I know we’ve been bleating on about PC system requirements lately, but the spec demands of Kerbal Space Program 2 also demand a special, visibly uncomfortable mention. This game, fresh into early access and the sequel to one that needed a mere 512GB of VRAM, lists the formidable RTX 3080 among its recommended hardware. That’s a £600-plus graphics card, and for the bare minimum of Low quality at 1080p? That’ll be either a GTX 1070 Ti or a Radeon RX 5600 XT.

Consternation at the star-high starting specs prompted Private Division community lead Michael Loreno to pen a forum post explaining the requirements, suggesting they were subject to change as further optimisations are added and that "the game is certainly playable on machines below our min spec." Sadly, I’ve been finding that several of the most-used GPUs among Steam users – including the immensely popular GTX 1060 – are likely to face serious performance woes in KSP2’s current state.

I have, genuinely, been trying to get plants for my office area (desk in the corner of the living room) for like nine months now. If my need for plants were a child, it would have been born. I had a decent pot plant called James Plant back in the UK, but when I moved I bequeathed James Plant to Graham - and, now that I think about it, Graham hasn't told me how James Plant is doing, so I should probably check in on that.

I know that digital plants do not replace real plants in a physical sense - i.e. I am getting no oxygenating benefit from them - but the little plants in Garden In! make me happy. And I've just realised the name is a pun, too.

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Everyone loves a robot companion, from Half-Life’s Dog to the plethora of Star Wars droids that are so cute they generate millions in merchandising. That’s why I’m intrigued by Plasma, a spacey physics-driven engineering game that lets players build a variety of robot friendos, useful machines, and generally wild contraptions. Plasma comes from Patrick Corrieri and Marco Bancale, who have previously worked on the Poly Bridge series and the tense Kingdom games. Their new creative engineering sim is heading into early access on March 30th, and I can’t wait to see what people make.

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There are plenty of great games based on books, but I’ve never seen an adaptation as unconventional as The Forest Cathedral, a dramatic reimagining of Rachel Carson’s science book from the ‘60s, Silent Spring. Carson’s book investigated the pesticide known as DDT, its harmful environmental impacts, and the misinformation that allowed companies to indiscriminately use it. The Forest Cathedral reimagines this series of events as partly a first-person walking sim across the woods and partly a 2D platformer set inside scanning equipment. So, yeah, not exactly a one-to-one adaptation.

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Publisher Paradox Interactive are preparing to announce three new games and four expansions at their Paradox Announcement Show airing next week - an announcement of an announcement if you like. The Paradox Announcement show will go live at 6pm CET/ 5pm GMT/ 9am PT on March 6th and you can catch the show on Paradox's official YouTube and Twitch channels.

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Aside from the newly added PvP colosseums, Elden Ring has been relatively quiet after selling a gazillion copies and winning every game of the year award in existence (except for the coveted RPS one.) Fans have been clamouring for DLC and you’d expect a big expansion announcement to coincide with the game’s first anniversary - February 25th - but developer FromSoftware chose to celebrate the mega-RPG’s birthday three days later - this morning. In a Twitter post, FromSoftware announced Elden Ring’s first expansion called Shadow Of The Erdtree.

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With the new Ryzen 7000X3D processors arriving today, it's perhaps not surprising to see last-gen models reaching new price lows. That's the case for the Ryzen 5700X, one of the fastest eight-core Ryzen CPUs ever made (behind the 7700X, 5800X and 5800X3D) and now firmly a member of the sub-£200 club. In fact, this processor is down to £177 at Amazon UK at present, meaning it's rapidly approaching half of its £329 UK RRP.

Yes, I know the CPU pictured is the 5800X. Please don't tell anyone! I didn't think you'd look at it that closely.

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Buying American imports on Amazon UK is one of the best ways to get a steep discount without resorting to lesser-known sellers, and occasionally you find a deal that is streets ahead of the nearest comparable price in Blighty. That's the case with this deal, where you can pick up Lexar's NS100 SATA SSD in a beautiful 1TB capacity for just £46.

That's a super low price for what is by all accounts quite a reasonable drive, with read speeds up to 550MB/s, write speeds up to 500MB/s, TLC NAND flash memory and a DRAM-less design.

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I’m not enough of a survivalist log-lugger for Sons of the Forest to be my leisure time bag, though it’s always entertaining to performance-test a PC game that’s constantly trying to kill you. This analysis and settings guide, then, is brought to you the ragged nerves of someone that’s spent several hours being screamed at by camouflaged cannibals, having only survived long enough to hear them by consuming several tins of cat food. Honestly, I am more cat food than man at this point.

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Oh no, poor Kerbal Space Program 2. The extremely anticipated sequel to everyone’s favourite rocket-building space exploration game is a hot mess. A list of bugs longer than a Saturn V reads like a terrible medical diagnosis: quivering periapsis, unpredictable methane leakage, late-stage separation anxiety, loose payloads, non-stop burning, and sensitive nodes.

The developers, smiling bravely in circumstances presumably beyond their control, describe the launch as like dropping a kid off for their first day at school. Well the kid forgot their lunchbox, their uniform, their books and their pencil case. They showed up at the wrong school, on a Saturday during half-term. If you were stranded on a desert island and had to recreate Kerbal Space Program from memory using nothing but coconuts and string, it would look something like Kerbal Space Program 2. The game is nowhere approaching finished, it barely resembles the promotional videos, and it isn’t ready, even by Early Access standards.

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Most JRPG fans on PC probably know Hironobu Sakaguchi as the creator and grandaddy of the Final Fantasy series. After he left Square Enix in 2003, Sakaguchi opened his own studio and worked on turn-based adventures like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey - games that arguably matched his genre-defining classics - but PC gamers have been largely unable to experience them, until now. Maybe. Sakaguchi recently took part in a Q&A (reported by IGN Japan, translated by VGC) where he expressed the desire to bring his Apple Arcade exclusive Fantasian to PC.

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Retro action-platformer Berserk Boy was first announced in the ancient year of 2021 and its reveal caught many fans (and me) off guard with how unbelievably rad it looked. After ten months of radio silence, the devs have finally released another trailer and launched a second Steam page - thankfully, the game still seems just as cool.

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As previewed by Alice Bee, The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition doesn’t simply bundle up Obsidian’s spacefaring RPG with its DLC expansions. It’s also an unexpected remaster, redoing and fine-tuning everything from companion AI and facial animations to weather effects and dynamic lighting. It’s an enticing prospect for a game that never previously counted visuals as its strong suit, though there will be a catch: the Spacer’s Choice Edition will have significantly higher PC system requirements than the 2019 original.

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Late last year game voted Most Likely To Make Me Accidentally Say The Name Of A Different Game and neo-old-school space RPG The Outer Worlds was rated for a mysterious Spacer's Choice Edition. Obsidian are now ready to officially reveal said wash and brush up, which is coming next week on March 7th, and bundles both DLCs for the game with remaster-y improvements to AI, VFX and technical art. To mark the occasion I got to chat with co-directors Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, and producer Eric DeMilt, all of whom who made games that are stastistically likely to number among your favourites - especially if you like RPGs.

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I spent some time with Crime Boss: Rockay City, the upcoming Payday-esque heist FPS that sees you tackle crime and murder in either singleplayer or co-op, all with nostalgia hits from characters played by Michael Madsen and Vanilla Ice. What's happened here is: I've come away with thoughts, but they're thoughts on one of three modes that's the least useful one to have thoughts on. The other two - the bulk of the game - weren't playable. Still, what I did play was simplistic fun that valued chaos over stealth, with middling results. Unless the other two modes wrap up its action in more interesting ways, I'm unsure whether I can see Crime Boss racking up the cash when it releases next month.

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Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by mech battles, Japanese horror, colourful farming, a hand-drawn horror game in the Doom engine, and plenty more. Come look!

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Halo Infinite has been in an extended slump since its second season began 10-months ago, but 343 Industries are hoping to turn things around when Season 3: Echoes Within starts next week on March 7th. Echoes Within is undeniably the biggest update to Infinite since launch, as it’s adding new maps, weapons and equipment, and expanding the multiplayer’s narrative - which has been a series of perpetual teases so far.

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Blood Bowl 3 released this past week to a reception from players as brutal as one of its matches. As its Steam reviews sit at the 'mostly negative' mark, developers Cyanide have posted a response aimed at "addressing the main topics of discussion".

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Sundays are for ordering a Steam Deck and getting quite excited about its arrival. Before you track its delivery, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).

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The Nintendo of Europe Twitter account offered another look at the new Bayonetta spin-off. A video clip shows off a cutscene in which Cereza meets the demon Cheshire for the first time in Bayonetta Origins. It also explains why the demon looks like the stuffed animal her mother made her and offers a look at how the story is conveyed throughout the game.

The video is set in the Avalon Forest. In Bayonetta Origins, Cereza heads off there after a dream of a young boy telling her she can find the power to save her mother inside. Once there, she ends up summoning the demon that becomes Cheshire. They end up inhabiting the body of the stuffed cat her mom made for her.

In this Bayonetta Origins cutscene, we see Cereza and Cheshire properly introducing themselves to each other. The demon that will become known as Cheshire noted that it didn’t have a name prior to that. Cereza then asks if she call them by the same name as her toy. The interaction sets the stage for their relationship as they follow the white wolf deeper into the forest.

Michael B. Jordan concludes his boxing trilogy with another knockout

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‘This is our Watergate’

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Considering the breadth of the internet zeitgeist, popular trends are bound to intersect at some point or another. At the moment, one search that seems to be doing the rounds combines everyone’s favorite battle royale game with some people’s favorite appendage, as the internet cannot get enough of Fortnite feet pics.

Why this is currently rising in popularity is still under investigation, however it turns out that feet memes have been ingrained within Fortnite‘s culture for some time now. There are literally years worth of content connecting the two, with sand scooper aficionados sharing everything from fan art to what appears to be some kind of attempt at rap. We have not provided links due to the subject matter’s sometimes lewd nature, however it is not hard to find if you’re curious.

TikTok appears to be a popular hot spot for the latest in Fortnite feet content, with a search of the term ‘Fortnite feet meme’ having garnered 4.2 billion views. For context, Super Bowl LVII was viewed by an estimated 113 million U.S. households, suggesting that 37 times as many people would like to see Fortnite feet pics, instead of Patrick Mahomes winning his second Lombardi Trophy.

Feet in general are a hot topic of discussion in gaming; at one point, there was a Twitter account specifically dedicated to whether you could see the feet of your favorite digital stars that had thousands of followers. This account has since been suspended, suggesting that they toed the line one too many times.

Scream VI is set to release in theaters soon, but in the meantime, Paramount has released a brand new promotional website, which allows fans to finally get a call from everyone’s favorite masked killer, Ghostface.

The website, which can be accessed here, only asks for someone’s name and phone number, along with an agreement to Paramount’s privacy policy, and in return, the person will receive their very own call from Ghostface. The phone call is even complete with the person’s name even said out loud by the killer, and comes from a New York caller ID, the same location where Scream VI takes place.

Now, there of course may be some limitations on the names that Ghostface can actually pronounce; however, it is still a cool feature that is sure to send shivers down the spine of anyone who receives the call.

One feature that may get people into trouble though is that the website doesn’t seem to keep track of those who are submitting the request, meaning that people could end up pretending to be others in an attempt to scare family and/or friends. So, while most may see it as fun, there is unfortunately someone who is going to ruin the fun, as getting the number to call someone who doesn’t want it is almost certainly not endorsed by Paramount.

Samsung's fast Evo Select Micro SD card has dropped to £40 on Amazon UK, making it a good time to upgrade the storage of your Steam Deck. This card normally retails closer to £50, with a stated UK RRP of £55, but it has dipped as low as £37.99 for a few days over the past year.

Still, this is a very reasonable price for a memory card that's good for up to 130MB/s sequential reads and meets the A2 requirements for random performance.

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There’s a minor bombshell tucked into the latest Steam Deck OS preview update, which is mainly about fixing Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty issues. With this update installed, you can enable proper, full-fat ray tracing on the Deck for the first time, specifically in Doom Eternal. Neat!

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F1 Manager 2022 is free to play on Steam this weekend. From now until March 6th for nowt, you can try Frontier's driving management simulation, with a 70% discount if you decide to buy it.

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Last time, you decided that elaborate corridor architecture is better than funicular fights. I wholeheartedly agree with you, but needed to check because the number of video game funicular fights compared to real-world funicular fights did suggest they might be wildly popular. Now we know. As we continue the mission, this week I ask you to choose between the evils of violence and money. What's better: Quake 2's railgun or the currency 'Gold'?

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Strategy specialists Paradox had a big day today, taking the lid off a bunch of new projects due for release over the next couple of years, including both new games and expansions to existing ones.

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We've seen 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs under the £100 mark before, but never have we see one for a clear £5 below - and never this model either. The Adata Legend 800 has been steeply discounted at Ebuyer, where £92 plus £3 shipping gets you this new model capable of 3500MB/s reads and 2800MB/s writes.

Yes, this isn't the best gaming SSD in terms of raw speed, but its PCIe 4.0 design means that it uses less power and fewer lanes than PCIe 3.0 alternatives of the same speed, a nicety for desktop use and a big deal for laptops.

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Nintendo shared new information about Chrom and Robin, the “Emblem of Bonds” and the new DLC Emblem Bracelet for Fire Emblem Engage. The pair combines Chrome’s swordsmanship and Robin’s magic abilities and tactical prowess to play with their opponents.

Their Sync Skill is "Surprise Attack," and it prevents enemies from counterattacking when initiating attacks from terrain with evasion bonuses. Their Engage Attack “Arcthunder Sword” attacks enemies with a sword infused with magical power.

https://twitter.com/FireEmblemJP/status/1632655445696614400

Their Engage Skill is “Other Half,” and it allows Robin to join in with a Chain Attack when initiating the attack. Their Engage Weapon is the classic “Levin Sword,” which allows the pair to attack from a distance with lightning magic.

Chrom and Robin share a bond beyond that of fate, and they show it in a conversation with Alear when both awake from their Emblem Bracelet at the same time. Similar to Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude, they are both considered a single Emblem.

https://twitter.com/FireEmblemJP/status/1632652380964802562

Tomokazu Sugita voices Chrom in the Japanese dub of Fire Emblem Engage. Sugita is best known for his roles as Yusuke Kitagawa in Persona 5, young Joseph Joestar in the 2012 anime adaptation of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Gintoki Sakata in the Gintama anime adaptation.

Boku no Natsuyasumi is a long-running Japanese series that, with a weird and bad exception, has never been officially released in the West. That’s a shame! Where publishers have failed us, though, fans are stepping up and delivering the goods.

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