January 2024

Want a 32-inch gaming monitor for around $150? If you sign up for LG's US store newsletter and get a 10% off code, you can get the LG 32GN600, a VA-panel monitor with excellent contrast, a 2560x1440 resolution and 165Hz refresh rate with FreeSync and G-Sync support, for just $152 rather than its already-discounted $169. That's a phenomenal deal and the best we've ever seen for a monitor of this size.

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With refreshed SUPER cards expected in the month ahead, mid-range RTX 40-series graphics cards are seeing heavy discounts at many retailers. One deal that caught our eye this morning is this deal on a Gigabyte RTX 4070 Windforce 3X OC model, which is down to £530.58 when bought from Amazon US via Amazon UK.

The deal price, which includes shipping and import duty, is significantly cheaper than UK-based options from major GPU makers which are in the £560 to £600 range. However, there are cheaper UK options if you're happy with a smaller, non-overclocked Palit card. Palit is more of a budget brand, but is built around the same Nvidia GPU and therefore offers the same performance.

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Promise you won't tell the other children, but the RPS staff are actually complex magical spells cast by the Sugar Plum Fairy, as part of an age old pact with the ents of the forest where the RPS treehouse was built hundreds of years ago. Each year the Sugar Plum Fairy has to collect more wishes to power the spells every year (you can help to make the spells more powerful by joining the RPS supporter program). While she's out wish-hunting, here are some Christmas Crackers to distract you.

Time to enjoy your lovely joke!

Q: What’s a fisherman’s favourite carol?

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Happy Wintermas, dear reader. And happy new year, I guess. Are you enjoying yours? I'm writing this in the distant past of mid-December, a period of total spiritual desolation. If all has gone to plan, I am currently waving a goblet over my head like some kind of hipster barbarian, and trying to finish all the dodgy vegan Xmas food I've cooked which the rest of my family won’t eat, the savages.

I have now read our so-called RPS 2023 Advent Calendar and found it to be woefully deficient in flirty rebels, lunar deities and stage coaches packed with damned adventurers. Never fear, however, because by happy coincidence I have also now written an end-of-year/start-of-year round-up article about these very things.

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Touhou spin-off, indie games are hit or miss. You never know what the experience and quality will be like until you give one a shot. Koumajou Remilia II: Stranger's Requiem is a follow-up to Frontier Aja and CFK’s original 2022 Castlevania sort of release and, while the game doesn’t do too much new for this series or genre, it’s a challenging enough adventure.

Some background with the Touhou series helps here, but the story of  Koumajou Remilia II: Stranger's Requiem is pretty easy to jump into. Sakuya Izayoi is essentially a maid/bodyguard for Remilia Scarlet. Upon returning to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, she finds things are awry and everyone else there missing. You’ll need to defeat familiar and unfamiliar bosses, who retain their bullet hell sort of energy attack patterns despite this being a Castlevania-like, reunite with characters who can become summon partners, and fight your way through stages to discover what’s going on.

LEGO Fortnite feels like one of the best surprises in gaming in a long time. Epic Games and LEGO came together to offer a survival experience that feels like an amalgamation of multiple titles into one monumental offering. It may not be perfect, but it lays the foundation for something special.

LEGO Fortnite feels like a mix of games like Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Story of Seasons, and Animal Crossing. It takes the standard survival and building mechanics of Minecraft, tosses in farming and relationships from Story of Seasons, and has the idea of building houses and recruiting lovable villagers, like in Animal Crossing.

Yamato Takeru, the Saber-class Servant from Fate/Samurai Remnant, appeared in the Japanese version of Fate/Grand Order. Type-Moon revealed at the very end of its Fate Project New Year's Eve 2023 TV program that the character would join the mobile game on January 1, 2024. Players in the Japanese server have confirmed that a new gacha banner featuring the Servant appeared right at midnight in Japan's time zone.

This character debuted in Fate/Samurai Remnant, an action RPG available on the PS5, PS4, Switch, and PC. As the Servant of the game's protagonist, official outlets had to keep the true identity under wraps shortly after the game came out in late September 2023. Type-Moon formally removed the restriction after it published an interview on the game's official website on December 22, 2023.

Type-Moon has also uploaded a new TV commercial video on Fate/Grand Order's YouTube channel. The last five seconds of this fifteen-second-long trailer features Yamato Takeru. The video is also available to watch right below:

Maybe you finally got Baldur’s Gate 3 this past week after pining for it for months and want some help tackling its tactical battles, or maybe you’re more interested in looking ahead to what early 2024 has to offer. Whatever the case, our roundup of tips and informative posts likely has something for you.

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As 1983 came into focus, the future of video games in North America looked bleak. Store shelves were crowded with poorly made games, and consumer interest waned substantially. Developers that ushered in the “golden age” of arcades and the first two generations of home consoles began to crash and burn at an alarming pace. In no time, the once billion-dollar industry was reduced to rubble.

In the summer of that same year, in Japan, gaming giant Nintendo released its first-ever home console with swappable cartridges. With its striking red and gold design, the Family Computer, better known as the Famicom, brought arcade hits like Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. into Japanese homes.

While the Famicom would go on to revitalize the North American gaming market as the VHS-inspired Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, many of Nintendo’s quirky games and accessories were forever locked in its home country. With the Famicom’s 40th anniversary at hand, there’s never been a better time to look back on the bizarre and surprisingly innovative experiments Nintendo unleashed on Japanese players throughout the console's celebrated run.

Turn-based combat is one of the oldest forms of battle in video games. Decades later, genres like the RPG still use turn-based combat effectively, so why has it stood the test of time?

The iconic combat system originated in pen-and-paper RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. When making the first RPG video games, translating the turn-based system was a natural choice for developers. It circumvented many technical issues, as the system was basically all math. You didn't need to see characters or really anything at all, but it still offered complexity and depth.

However, as the video game industry grew in popularity, so did the technical capabilities of games. Now, there are plenty of ways to portray combat in real-time effectively. Despite there being more advanced alternatives available, we still have many games released that are turn-based. This is because the combat system still offers a unique depth.

After a lengthy development cycle, Neko Atsume VR is finally around as Neko Atsume Purrfect Kitty Collector for Meta Quest 2, 3, and Pro headsets. While it is cute and quite relaxing, it feels like it sticks a bit too closely to the mobile balancing and doesn’t take into account that someone might only play it once or twice each day.

Like the mobile game, Neko Atsume Purrfect Kitty Collector is about making your virtual home inviting to stray cats. You set out food and place objects and toys for the cats to use. Then, you take some time away and come back to see what animals were lured in by your treats. You then get to take photos of them being adorable, which you catalog in a journal, collect fish as gifts from them or mementos if they like you enough, and put out more food and items to repeat the process. Here, the new gimmicks involve handheld items to feed treats or shake toys, the opportunity to pet or pick up cats after calling them over, and taking advantage of mixed reality features to see the cats in the “real world.”

While the weather outside is still a bit chilly and everyone’s bank accounts are recovering from the holidays, visiting an escape room with friends might not be at the top of your to-do list. Fortunately, you can currently get some of the same puzzly satisfaction for free - and without having to go outside - by nabbing Escape Academy over on the Epic Games Store for the next 24 hours.

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Happy New Year! Now that 2024 is here, it’s time to push it the hell out of the way and look ahead to 2025. At least, that’s what it feels like the game industry is increasingly saying I should do. A number of recently revealed titles have been slapped with 2025 release windows, so I can’t help but wonder how next year will shape up and, most importantly, what the awards seasons will look like.  

There are still hundreds of games yet to fill the 2025 release calendar, but let’s pretend they won’t exist. Let’s say 95% of the game industry collectively decided to take a year off. Making games is obscenely hard, and to avoid crunch, everyone decided to take some well-deserved (and well-compensated) R&R, so these seven titles are the only ones to launch in 2025. What’s Game Awards host Geoff Keighley to do come December? Continue the show anyway; those trophies aren’t going to award themselves. 

To save yourself three hours of cringy celebrity presenters and Genshin Impact commercials, I’ve taken the liberty of spoiling the event here. Be sure to check back next December to see how right I am. 

The director of Tekken 8 has responded after a video of the upcoming fighting game’s colourblind mode was reported to have caused migraines and vertigo among players, with accessibility experts expressing their worries that the filter could cause even more serious side effects among those with epilepsy and other photosensitive conditions.

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Platform: PlayStation 5
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Release: February 29, 2024
Rating: Teen

Final Fantasy VII is full of iconic scenes. Whether you're talking about the well-known sequences already depicted in Remake or the upcoming gut-punch at the Forgotten Capital, the Remake trilogy allows fans to experience these moments in their most fully realized forms. While this middle portion of Final Fantasy VII, which Rebirth depicts, focuses on Aerith and the looming specter of Sephiroth, so much of Rebirth's depiction emphasizes the deepening of relationships.

Now that Headbangers: Rhythm Royale has had some time to breathe, I really can’t help but feel like this minigame based battle royale is still not quite on par with Fall Guys. It’s close, but certain elements hold it back a bit. 

Like Fall Guys, Headbangers: Rhythm Royale is a battle royale in which 30 players go through rounds by playing music-based minigames to determine which player is the best. Each person has a mascot character, like the titular Fall Guys, only here they are pigeons. It’s designed to follow a quick get in, place in the group, get out, go again gameplay loop as well too. 

Fallout: London has been in the works for five years now, culminating in a seriously impressive mod for Fallout 4 that’s essentially a brand new game set in a radiated England rather than North America. After missing its planned release window in 2023, it now has a full release date - and it’s only a few months away.

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According to an official announcement from Cover, the New Year’s outfit reveal streams for Hololive English Advent Vtubers have been postponed due to the earthquake and disasters that struck Japan on January 1, 2024. This was announced directly on social media this morning.

The members of Hololive English Advent were originally scheduled to each reveal a new outfit on January 1, 2024. That date will be redecided to respect the immediate crisis at this time. Cover noted that the company will keep fans updated via social media when a new date has been decided to show the Vtubers’ new outfits.

See the official announcement in the post below:

[embed]https://twitter.com/hololive_en/status/1741814165432623354[/embed]

The earthquake and disaster that struck Japan on January 1, 2024 is currently still ongoing, and more information will be released as it progresses. Currently, we know that Ishikawa and its surrounding prefectures have been heavily negatively impacted by the disaster. The recorded earthquake’s tremors measured a maximum seismic intensity of 7, the highest on the Japan Meteorological Agency’s seismic intensity scale. A major tsunami warning has been issued for most of Japan’s western coastline, and evacuation orders have been called for Ishikawa, Niigata, Toyama, and Yamagata.

The New Year’s outfit reveal streams for the members of Hololive English Advent must be postponed and will be moved to a later date due to the earthquake that struck Japan today.

As usual, the Japanese magazine Famitsu kicked off 2024 by sharing messages from 163 game developers regarding their future plans for this year and asking them to reflect on the previous year’s accomplishments. Daisuke Ishiwatari, the general director of the Guilty Gear series, detailed the direction of Arc System Works in the coming year. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Daisuke Ishiwatari expressed his concerns with the game development side of the industry in his statement. He believes that there should be a space for new indie developers to become relevant in the market, and that they should be allowed to fail and grow.

As part of his statement, Ishiwatari noted:

To sum it up, we are living in an era in which failure is not an option… Young people who are aiming to become game developers are losing the opportunity to nurture their own creativity.

The keywords Ishiwatari reported for the video game industry in 2024 are “core markets,” “indie,” “corporate development schemes,” and “compliance.” The keywords for his own goals at Arc System Works are “challenge,” “pioneering,” “return,” and “dawn.”

The Japanese magazine Famitsu released a series of messages from 163 game developers asking them about their aspirations for the year 2024. Shinjiro Takata, the product manager at the Atlus 1st Production division responsible for the Shin Megami Tensei series, detailed his current involvement with the upcoming Vanillaware title Unicorn Overlord, as well as hinted at other future plans for additional Atlus games. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

As is the plan, Unicorn Overlord is still scheduled to be released on March 8, 2024 for the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and the Nintendo Switch.

Shinjiro Takata mentioned that there is more than just Unicorn Overlord in the works at Atlus. According to his aspirations for 2024, he is ready to prepare additional an additional title, as well as other games. in the future.

Here's the message in which he teased other new Atlus games:

In 2024, we plan to release Vanillaware’s Unicorn Overlord and one other title… At the same time, I’d like to prepare projects for the future.

Happy new year all. What's the weather like where you are? We've got Amber and Yellow warnings in London - I do not understand what these terms mean, but I'm going to add a Sapphire warning for escalating Maw activity. The creature was pretty lively over the Xmas weekend, but Graham managed to soothe it with posts about gaming-related new year resolutions and, of all things, the Spike Video Game Awards. We can expect the Maw's petulance to mount during January, a lean month for announcements and revelations, but there are a few tasty morsels in the offing - a new Prince of Persia and Tekken 8, for instance. Fingers crossed we can build up some kind of momentum.

Some new game releases we are pointing our telescopes at this week: Skeleton Rebellion (4th Jan), a scrappy offbeat RPG with claymation elements in which you are a skeleton trying to overthrow some mages, and The Night Is Grey (5th Jan), a point-and-click adventure about a beardy bloke and a little girl stuck in the woods with some weirdo wolves. If you like, you can also play a free drinking game I've just invented in which you do a shot for every time I accidentally write 2023 instead of 2024.

Microsoft president Brad Smith has changed his tone somewhat towards UK regulatory body the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), admitting its initial plan to block the company's Activision Blizzard buyout was "tough and fair".

Speaking with the BBC's Today Program earlier this week, Smith said it actually "pushed Microsoft to change the acquisition that we had proposed, for Activision Blizzard to spin out certain rights that the CMA was concerned about with respect to cloud gaming."

Smith continued: "I think the CMA vindicated its position but still created a pragmatic path forward for innovation and investment. I think that is good for everyone."

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Baldur's Gate 3 players are still experiencing issues with game saves on Xbox, with some losing their progress as a result.

The award-winning RPG released on Microsoft's consoles last month, however many have experienced issues getting their games to save. Both Microsoft and developer Larian acknowledged this following the game's Xbox launch, but issues are still persisting weeks later.

In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Larian assured players Microsoft is working on an official fix for the game's save issues, which it said are being caused by a firmware issue. However, due to the festive period, there is a reduced workforce, so things are taking longer than normal to smooth out.

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Square Enix will be "aggressive in applying AI" and other "cutting-edge technologies" to its development and publishing functions.

CEO Takashi Kiryu has shared his annual new year letter, setting the tone for the company in 2024.

"Artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential implications had for some time largely been subjects of academic debate," he said of AI development in 2023.

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VR studio First Contact Entertainment has shut down. The company, which is behind PSVR and PSVR2 games Firewall Zero Hour and Firewall Ultra, said the "lack of support for VR within the industry" was a factor in its decision.

First Contact Entertainment shared the news just before Christmas, via a statement on Facebook. "After almost 8 years of working with the most amazing team I've ever had the pleasure of being part of, I'm sad to announce that we will be closing our company First Contact Entertainment by the end of the year," reads the statement.

"The lack of support for VR within the industry has eventually taken its toll. As a AAA VR game developer, we are just not able to justify the expense needed [going] forward. We are a team of fearless innovators willing to push new technologies to its limits."

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Square Enix representative director and president Takashi Kiryu has written a new year's letter outlining the Final Fantasy publisher's plans for 2024, while offering a few reflections on the year that was. The topline: they want to do more with generative "AI" machine learning tools, and they're still dead keen on metaversy VR/AR stuff. The blockchain remains a "focus", too, though it gets much less of a billing than in 2023's new year letter from Square Enix’s previous president Yosuke Matsuda.

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Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every week, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, let's return kick off the new year with a jumbo-sized edition with even more games from across our Christmas holiday. Expect unexpectedly laid-back stressful horror, slow-motion stunting gunfights, a watercolour world, spaceships, mecha, and far too many legs. Check out these attractive and interesting indie games!

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The Japanese magazine Famitsu released a series of 163 messages from various game developers asking them about their aspirations for the 2024 new year. Hideki Kamiya, the founder of PlatinumGames who also worked on titles like Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, Okami, Astral Chain, and Bayonetta, answered that he hopes to get a job in the game industry again this year. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Ever since his retirement from Platinum Games in October 2023, Hideki Kamiya has been officially unemployed. Apparently, this dormancy has been impacting him over time. He noted:

I want to get a job making games so that I can have a meal.

It seems that the retired game developer wishes to reappear to develop video games once again with the new year. Rather than spending time on social media, he hopes to regain relevancy and employment in the video game industry in 2024. He also said:

According to a 2024 New Year’s message from the Square Enix director and president Takashi Kiryu, he stated he feels "there is a possibility" that AI " will fundamentally change the way we make things." After watching this advent in technology boom over the past year, he decided that it would be best for the company to embrace it.

Takashi Kiryu’s statement on AI comes from his observance of its ability to remain relevant in the public eye. Though it has taken some time to normalize the use of it, he suggests there is potential for it in the digital entertainment field. He even mentioned that Square Enix believes in the potential it to change the way the company creates things.

Here is the full part of his statement in the Square Enix New Year's message for 2024 concerning AI.

Rebellion co-founders Chris and Jason Kingsley have been recognised for their services to the economy as part of the King's New Year Honours list. This recognition has seen the brothers each being awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire).

The Kingsley siblings co-founded Rebellion, which is best known for the Sniper Elite series, in Oxford all the way back in 1992. Since its conception in the early 90s, the company has since expanded to include comic, book, board game, film and TV work under its umbrella.

Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley called it an "incredible honour" to be awarded a CBE. "It, in part, reflects the growth and success of Rebellion but also the wider UK games industry. Games are now the leading form of entertainment media," he wrote.

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Steamboat Willie is now in the public domain, so as has come to be expected, someone has made a horror game starring a grotesque villain inspired by the original Mickey Mouse.

Called Infestation 88, this upcoming release is following in similar footsteps of slasher film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey and the horrifying Winnie's Hole, and the more directly Steamboat Willie-inspired first-person shooter, Mouse, announced last year. This time, developer Nightmare Forge Games has taken an innocent and beloved children's character and given it a sinister makeover.

You can see a short teaser for it below.

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Listen, I know we've spent the better part of the holidays harping on about all our favourite games of 2023 (and many more besides as part of our bonus Selection Boxes), but here's another one for you that I mainlined in a single day over Christmas and absolutely loved. It's Makoto Wakaido's Case Files Trilogy Deluxe - a collection of not three, but four detective stories in which you go about solving grizzly murders across different towns and villages in Japan. In short: if you like the investigation bits of Ace Attorney and need something to whet your appetite before the Apollo Justice Trilogy comes out on January 25th, this will be 100% up your street. It's currently just over a fiver in the Steam Winter Sale, and there's a free demo you can try as well for good measure.

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Nijisanji Vtuber Selen Tatsuki offered an update on her condition following her hospitalization. She is now home for the hospital, but still on break.

On December 27, 2023, Selen announced she needed to be hospitalized following an accident. This followed two days of silence and her not appearing during scheduled streams following her cover of the song “Last Cup of Coffee” being removed by Anycolor. At the time, she encouraged her followers to reupload the track, noting how much of her own money and effort from all sides went into its creation. She mentioned she was “under supervision” for a brief period.

On December 31, 2023, Selen posted to social media that she is home and with her parents. She also thanked her followers. 

Timi Studio and The Pokemon Company International kicked off 2024 by revealing Magikarp and Gyarados will appear in Pokemon Unite on January 25, 2024. The announcement also confirmed that Magikarp’s “Splash” attack will be tied to its evolution method.

First, here’s the first screenshot of Magikarp in Pokemon Unite, which shows a new gauge below the health bar that is apparently tied to the attack Splash (はねる). The UI in the bottom right also notes the move Flail (じたばた) is present.

Square Enix shared the first FFVII Rebirth January 2024 calendars, and this time Yuffie and Red XIII get to be the featured characters. While both appeared in FFVII Remake and its DLC, they will be playable members of the main party in the second part.

Here are the two Red XIII FFVII Rebirth January 2024 calendars. As there are no characters from the game with birthdays this month, none of the dates are highlighted to remind people.

Not long after Baldur’s Gate 3 debuted on the Xbox Series X, a save bug also appeared. While the problem is still lingering in 2024, Larian Studios shared a step-by-step process on social media that involves using a Larian account and cross-saves as a workaround.

How this process works is someone would need to make a Larian account. From there, you need to go into the game on the Xbox. If you head into options, you can enable the cross-save feature and enable the ability to automatically upload the five most recent saves that were made while playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on the Xbox Series X to deal with the bug. The developer also noted you need to go through the process of turning on cross-saves each time the issue comes up and you lose your saves, so you can then download the five most recent saves. 

Larian Studios also didn’t note when this save bug will be fixed. The last update on it came on December 31, 2023. It did note that both it and Microsoft are aware of the issue. Only the Xbox Series X is affected by the problem.

Here’s the full announcement going over the four steps to mitigate after effects for the issue. 

Update: Earlier today, a Disney Parks blog pointed to Star Wars Outlaws releasing in late 2024, but the term "late" has now been removed from the post so that is now reads just 2024. Ubisoft also confirmed to Kotaku that, "the timing was incorrect and has since been amended." So, Star Wars Outlaws' release window has moved from late 2024 back to some general time this year.

Original story:

Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft's upcoming open-world Star Wars game, has enjoyed a vague 2024 release window since it was revealed at an Xbox Showcase last year. However, a recent post on Disney's official park blog has given the game a more specific window. According to the blog, Star Wars Outlaws is releasing late 2024. The blog post, which is a collection of 24 exciting Disney-things happening in 2024 reads, "And for Star Wars fans – Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world Star Wars game is set to release late this year."

Before we read and wrote, we moved. Stories of people moving – migrating – have been told since time immemorial. The Mexica journey to central Mexico; Moses leading the Jewish people across the desert; the founding of Rome – as told by Virgil – by those that fled the fall of Troy. Unsurprisingly, then, video games also tell stories of migration. On August 8, 2013, game designer Lucas Pope, the man behind the studio 3909, released Papers, Please, a game about managing migration.

Papers, Please, subtitled “A Dystopian Document Thriller,” was for some the first time they played a game whose core design ethos challenged their worldviews and understanding. Other games have placed the topic of migration front and center. Path Out (Causa Creations, 2014), an adventure game that retells the journey of Abdullah Karam, a young Syrian artist who escapes the country’s decade-long civil war in 2014; and Escape from Woomera (2003), a game about a refugee, Mustafa, stuck in the infamous Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre in South Australia, are two stand-outs. Papers, Please tackles the subject from a different perspective. You play an inspector examining documents, determining whether a person can enter the fictional country of Arstotzka.

Steam is by far the most peculiar of online storefronts. Built on top of itself for the last twenty years, Valve’s behemothic PC game distributor is a clusterfuck of overlapping design choices, where algorithms rule over coherence, with 2023 seeing over 14,500 games released into the mayhem. Which is too many games.

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2024 is starting off strong: The controversial Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision Blizzard King, is no longer heading up the Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch 2 publisher. We knew this was going to happen—shortly after Microsoft completed its massive $68 billion purchase of ActiBlizz, the company…

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