It sounds very much like there’s a single-player Apex Legends game on the horizon, judging from several jobs being advertised by Respawn Entertainment. Hang on – stompy robot shooter Titanfall 2 was the only single-player game in the same universe as Apex so far. Could this be Titanfall 3 or something else entirely?
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 I have more games than usual to share because dang, so many things looked cool. Come admire!
Sci-fi shooter Halo Infinite finally sees some movement to get campaign co-op into the game this week, which will see the launch of the campaign network co-op preview. It's not certain yet exactly what day or time the beta begins, but anyone looking to team up with friends for the beta will need to have been part of the Halo Insider program for at least three months and have an Insider Xp level of 5 or higher. The preview will be available for both purchased copies of Halo Infinite and to players using Game Pass for PC. Steam players will be sent a unique key to access the relevant build through Halo Insider.
Sundays are for accidentally rubbing your eyes after handling chilli. Before you cry, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).
Team Fortress 2 has received another update, one which apparently addresses "exploits and stability issues" with Valve's aging but popular shooter. It's the second TF2 update in as many weeks after the game's players began protesting a lack of action to address the large number of exploits plaguing the game.
Hitman 3 and its closely-related predecessors already contain more murder sandboxes than I can handle, but IO Interactive continue to add more for free. Later this month, Hitman 3 receives Ambrose Island, a tropical island home to a "dangerous pirate syndicate" and whole new level level for Agent 47 to wreak his sneaky havoc within.
Honestly, after this week in UK politics, I—as the kids in their early thirties say—can't even. Thank goodness a Duke Nukem 3D level is preserving it all for posterity. But it is now the weekend, and that is the important thing. What are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!
I swear I saw the logo for Small Claims Court and just thought, yeah, that seems like an indie game. Turns out it wasn't, it was one of several pieces of "fake game art" created by Valve artist Claire Hummel as part of the Steam summer sale. Now that the sale is over, Hummel shared all of the made-up key art on Twitter, and it's all great.
Developers making space games have a habit of trying to make every game, all at once. So it seems with Introversion's The Last Starship, which in its latest update video looks to be about shipbuilding, crew management, engineering, exploration, real-time combat and much more. More impressively, they all look like games I want to play.
Head on over to the Epic Games Store this week and you'll find two free games and a feeling of deja vu. The games are Ancient Enemy and Killing Floor 2, and it's the latter that triggered the memory trip for me - because it was also free on Epic this week two years ago. But hey, if you missed it, the zombie shooter still one of the best co-op games, so grab it while you can.
Come August, you'll no longer need a Facebook account in order to use the Meta Quest family of VR headsets. Instead, you'll be able to sign up for a new Meta account and then a Meta Horizon profile, with Facebook and Instagram accounts optional bolt-ons.
Earlier this week, I had a real blast from the past moment. Apparently, my ancient LiveJournal turned 18 on Tuesday, a thing I haven't posted in or given a single thought to for at least ten years. Naturally, curiosity got the better of me, so I dipped my toe back in to see what teenage Katharine had been blogging about in the mid to late 00s. Aside from all my custom images having been eaten, probably with the closure of whatever photo upload service I used back in the day, everything else was pretty much in tact.
But man alive. Those OPINIONS. Just terrible. Bad, awful, narrow-minded. In some ways it's quite funny looking back at how angry I was about Nintendo putting trains in a Zelda game, for example (joke's on me, Spirit Tracks would go on to become one of my fav Zelda games of all time), but in many ways I'm just quite glad I've (hopefully) moved on as a person, if only because recent weeks have reminded me there are still plenty of people out there like late 00s Katharine who are in all likelihood the same age I am now. Yes, I'm talking about the backlash to Return Of Monkey Island.
I thought I wanted a gardening game. The few I tried were fussy, though, and too much like the kind of cold scientific procedure that turns growing things into industry. With Lost Nova on my back burner I shrugged, and gave that a go, having frankly forgotten what it was.
It's a gathering game, so almost the reverse of gardening, or perhaps the end point of it. But its relaxed pace, warm tone, and fun dialogue were, it turns out, exactly what I needed. There's no pressure, and not too much to worry about. You can just wander about enjoying the vibe and digging things up with your gentle laser as you go.
The Ultimate Audio Bang is back! Yes, after a sad albeit festive farewell to Imogen (RPS in peace) I've since roped poor Hayden in to chat with me. As it's his first rodeo, we keep this episode fairly relaxed and get to know a bit more about our new pod bud, then follow it up with our Point Of Interest: Summer Geoff Fest. Namely, the shooters and shootery things that caught our eyes from its many showcases.
A revamped version of the Skyrim Together mod allowing co-op for Bethesda’s classic fantasy RPG is finally available to download from NexusMods today. Dubbed Skyrim Together Reborn, the mod's developers say this version is a significant improvement over the previous version. Witness players tackling some main quests together in Together Team’s video below.
Monster Hunter has always been a series I've admired from afar. Like that smiling face with a tear running down one cheek emoji, I've watched friends discuss the trials and tribulations of a great Tigrex hunt and watched YouTube videos breaking down all the cool things you can do with the Insect Glaive.
So, with Monster Hunter Rise netting itself a bestest best badge and its Sunbreak expansion getting some serious praise in our review, I thought it was time to pull up my regular socks in the hopes that I could replace them with a pair woven from a big lizard's gooch. And I think I'm enjoying it? I think those socks could be mine? I just need to stop my brain from short-circuiting first.
Madison is a fun game to write about. It's a puzzle horror game set in your traditional haunted house, aiming at a P.T. or Layers Of Fear vibe down the viewfinder of a Polaroid camera. Said camera was a second-hand gift for Luca's (that's you!) 16th birthday. It is also possessed by a demon, which is where the fun comes in, "fun" here meaning jump scares and hallucinatory clocks. Let that be a lesson to anyone thinking of getting their son something that was evidence in a murder as a present. This is one of many bad choices characters in Madison made. They are mostly now dead.
The game itself sometimes makes very good choices, though it's about 50/50 that it goes a bit too weird and ends up being silly. This makes for an intriguing mixture, especially with a complicated story of murder and neglect spanning decades, and by the end I was extremely fond of the way the sublime and the ridiculous sat side by side. The main let down isn't that Madison sometimes makes you giggle by accident, but that its multi-stage puzzles become so drawn out that you stop jumping at creepy angels and terrifying violin squeals. You've got numbers to write down and candles to move, and you don't have time for any demonic antics right now, godammit.
I've said before that the greatest chronicle of English culture is a Duke Nukem 3D level, and that continues to be true. In a bleak country full of absurd events happening at breakneck pace, modder Dan Douglas is doing his best to capture them in his level, Duke Smoochem 3D. Barely a day after British prime minister Boris Johnson announced his intent to resign, Douglas has already added it to his yet-unfinished level. And yes, he's made it even sillier.
Rockstar have confirmed that they won’t support their digital Westworld of Red Dead Online with any further major content updates, as the development of the next Grand Theft Auto takes priority. The news came via a post on Rockstar’s newswire blog. Players among the Red Dead Online community have been vocal about their disappointment at the game’s apparent lack of support, with some even deciding to organise a funeral for the multiplayer cowboy spin-off scheduled for July 13th.
Yesterday, we announced our next free game key giveaway for RPS premium supporters. This is your reminder that you'll be able to claim said game key for the beautiful action roguelite Have A Nice Death today, from 5pm BST / 9am PT. That's in just a couple of hours time.
A team of actual real-life cats have apparently released a video game, and who am I to question marketing? A Building Full Of Cats does seem like a game cats might make, a hidden object game with so very many cats to 'pet' (find and click on). It's some nice cat-clicking for under £2.
Interactive horror flick The Quarry has finally got its online multiplayer mode, which arrived in a free update last night. Devs Supermassive Games are referring to the multiplayer as ‘Wolf Pack’, which makes me wish Zach Galifianakis would pop up to comment on your playthrough. Refresh your memory about Hacket’s Quarry by watching the launch trailer below.
I've enjoyed the early access experience of Vampire Survivors, hopping back on every few weeks to check out a new update and do all the new stuff (and make all the new explosions). The roguelikelike survival arcade game has grown a lot, and fast, especially considering it started as a solo project. As it nears version 1.0, the latest big update has added a new final boss to the final level, a flashy battle.
Nobody likes mannequins, except maybe Andrew McCarthy. Nobody likes dead bodies being puppeted around out much either, except maybe Andrew McCarthy. That’s why I’m slightly disappointed that Supermassive Games didn't hire the legendary 1980s actor to star in The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me, which revealed a little more about its spooky murder doll house in a new story trailer. I’m sure you’ll be thoroughly creeped out when you watch it below.
Modders have been getting busy with FSR 2.0, AMD’s latest, recently open source-ified, Nvidia DLSS-esque upscaling tech. First someone got FSR 2.0 working in Cyberpunk 2077, then someone modded the Cyberpunk mod to get FSR in Dying Light 2, and then someone discovered the mod of the mod could also mod Metro Exodus. Now, redditor Muddymind has figured out how to tweak the Metro mod so that it can act as an Nvidia DLAA clone, skipping the upscaling bit to solely provide better image quality and anti-aliasing.
One of Logitech's best keyboards is going for better than half-off at Amazon today. The G613 Lightspeed is a wireless mechanical keyboard that offers a full-size layout with six macro keys, so a premium price of $130 isn't surprising - but today, this keyboard is retailing for just $62 at Amazon US. That's a historic low price.
Dell's excellent S2721DGFA FreeSync/G-Sync Compatible gaming monitor, a 27-in 1440p 165Hz model that hits the current sweet spot for price versus performance, is down to £299 at Dell UK. That's £80 below its normal price there, and £38 cheaper than the same monitor on Amazon. Here's why I rate this monitor so highly.
This is the problem with the cavalcade of games presented during Summer Games Fest: it's easy to miss the gems among all the other gems. Schim was one I failed to spot entirely, despite our Ed placing it among the best games he played at the event in LA. It's a bouncy puzzle adventure about a frog-like creature who lives in shadows, and there's a new trailer below.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown was announced back in 2020 as a revival of the luxurious racing sim. Then 2021 brought a CG trailer and the exciting news that the game was set in Hong Kong. Now, in year three, we get the first real footage of the Solar Crown in action... for a few seconds... with stuff laid all over it...
At today's Nacon Connect, we got a little more info on upcoming action adventure game Hell Is Us from its creative director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête. In-between agonising jargon like "narrative layers" and "high-level directives", there's some neat concept art and info on what we can expect from the story, combat, and exploration.
Robo-revolutionary Soulslike Steelrising left me impressed when I played its opening hours not too long ago. So much so, I thought it was a homage to Bloodborne's best bits. And at today's Nacon Connect, developers Spiders unveiled a new trailer which shows ballerina-turned-bodyguard Aegis fight off some metallic monstrosities, mixed in with a bit of parkour. Seriously, I'm excited for this one.
Today’s Nacon Connect event included gritty antiheroes such as the Terminator and RoboCop, but I never would’ve expected to see Robin Hood there too. Appeal Studios’ Gangs Of Sherwood is an upcoming third-person PvE co-op action game that puts you in the dainty shoes of the Merry Men. This time though, it’s set in a dystopian future instead of Ye Merry Olde England. Watch the announcement teaser below to see what you think of that.
A new The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum trailer has dropped at today's Nacon Connect, which shows Mr Precious scamper about in some suitably fantastical locations. He hops between some bushes, dodges a dragon, and chucks something at an orc - all the staples of a Hobbit who's gone goblin mode. I'm still a bit on the fence about it, though.
Today’s Nacon Connect event had a bunch of licensed games starring pop culture figures both old and older, but one standout among them was Nacon Studio Milan’s upcoming Terminator survival game. Will you be able to play as Terminators? It's not yet clear. Heck, it's so early on the game doesn't even have a proper name yet. Feel free to recoil in fear from the announcement teaser trailer below.
Robocop: Rogue City aims to be authentic to the first three films in the series, which means it'll either be a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be human and a cutting satire of American culture, or it'll be about fighting robot ninjas and having a jetpack. Or both! The first proper trailer of the game confirms only that it'll definitely be a mid-budget first-person shooter.
Back in the mists of time, I actually had a hands on with Ubisoft's pirate 'em up Skull And Bones once. In my memory of it, I was an adolescent, which was categorically not the case and probably more a product of the booths at Gamescom being very tall, not to mention the hands on taking place so very long ago. At that time, the game was essentially the naval combat bit from AC: Black Flag, carved out and extended to be its own thing. Now, years later and with many delays and reworks bobbing about in its wake, Skull And Bones is back, and looking a bit different.
The current state of play for Skull And Bones was revealed with a livestream tonight, featuring an explainer video walking you through some of the game features, a chonk of the game in piratical action, and a surprisingly close release date confirmation for the 8th of November 2022 (there's still time for it to be delayed again!). All those extra months in the oven have produced a decidedly Sea Of Thieves-shaped bun. But this one is all realistic and gritty, more complicated, and is taking itself seriously. You won't catch Skull And Bones announcing its new season features with a comedy song, that's for sure.
It's fair to say that Skull And Bones has had a somewhat troubled development. Ubisoft's pirate-themed live service MMO has been knocking around for almost a decade, having been overhauled a couple of times since it started life as a DLC for Asassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. But at a stream tonight it was revealed that Skull And Bones still exists, and not only that, but it has a release date of November 8th, 2022. Still a few months left to delay it again if necessary, but fingers crossed.
Torchlight lives again. Torchlight Infinite is the newest attempt to bring life to the action RPG series, this time developed by XD. The project has been in closed beta as a mobile game for some time, while simultaneously being developed for PC - and now XD say they're going to announce details of the PC version later this month.
