Listen, there’s no reason to beat around the bush with this one. Anger Foot is amazing. It was amazing when I played its early build last year, and its Steam Next Fest demo is somehow even better. How could it not be! Have you seen it? Anger Foot is a game about kicking doors at muppet men. That’s it. That’s the pitch. It rules.
Farthest Frontier, which arrives on Steam Early Access on August 9th, sounds as much of a statement of intent as it does the name of a city-building game. It’s a combination of town management and survival sim, putting you in the presumably cheap clogs of a band of settlers trying to make a go of it in the wilderness. A story trailer for Farthest Frontier was shown at last weekend’s PC Gaming Show, which you can watch below.
DDR5 RAM arrived late last year, but it's taken until now to see the first semi-reasonable prices for a kit of next-generation memory. CCL are currently selling a kit of Crucial DDR5-4800 for £89.94, more than £30 cheaper than the same kit is on Amazon.
This is the first time I've seen a DDR5 kit of any description under £100, so if you're considering a 12th-gen Intel (or AMD Ryzen 7000) build, then this might be just what you need.
Dear Esther meets Amnesia in The Silent Swan, an open-world walk-o-story set inside a mysterious walled land with two towering empty cities. It has a demo in the Steam Next Fest and I think I want more? I was drawn in by screenshots of vast Gothic architecture, put off by frustrating slowness, then kept interested by the mysteries of our fella adrift in his former home. It does, at the very least, have pleasingly giant buildings rising from fog.
The RX 6700 XT is one of the best value AMD graphics cards, and today sees a price drop on an XFX Speedster model at Amazon.com. This chunky triple-slot card now costs $480, a $80 reduction from its US MSRP and a new low-water mark for this category of GPUs.
Last time, you decided that friendship is better than interrupting conversations. You must be very good friends, if your friendship is more important than your desire to butt in. And now I know I can butt in and you'll just accept it. This week, we pick between an unfathomable conception of flesh and a matter of convenience. What's better, invert mouse or undo?
Your boy was in LA for Summer Geoff Fest 2022 and had the opportunity to sit down with Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield, who's now director of Striking Distance Studios and their upcoming sci-fi horror fest The Callisto Protocol. We touched on the game's "beta paths", its gore system, upgrades, and batteries. There was a lot of chat about batteries. Forgot to ask if they were AA or AAA, though.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, a sidescrolling beat ‘em up that aims to recapture the spirit of the TMNT arcade games from decades past, is both incredibly simple and a breath of fresh air. It’s a basic button-mashing affair that offers nothing new, but that facilitated a good old chinwag that I didn't know I needed.
It was something I really appreciate, when my go-to multiplayer games, such as Warzone and Destiny 2, demand my constant and unwavering attention. Lasting about three hours, Shredder’s Revenge won’t become your new time sink, but it’s an undemanding arcadey jaunt that you can enjoy while munching on pizza with pals. Or, ya know, over Discord while everyone is surrounded by takeaway tubs in their bedrooms.
Retro-futuristic RPG pentequel Fallout 5 will be Bethesda’s next project after they complete work on The Elder Scrolls 6, development leader Todd Howard has confirmed in an interview with IGN. You might have to wait for some years to see anything from it though, as The Elder Scrolls 6 is only in “pre-production”. We’ll all be sporting Methuselah-length beards and have popped all the achievements in Starfield’s umpteenth DLC by then.
Multiplayer medieval battle sim Chivalry 2 has galloped onto Valve’s storefront at last, with the Steam version including all updates already released on other plaftorms. The arrival coincides with what publishers Tripwire Interactive are calling Chivalry 2’s largest and “most ambitious” update since the game’s launch, dubbed the Tenosian Invasion. Close your visor and raise your sword, ready for the trailer below.
V Rising, the vampiric survival base builder and surprise hit of 2022 so far, has just got freshly minted Steam Deck Playable status - courtesy of an update to the Deck’s Proton compatibility software. As per Valve’s changelog for the Proton 7.0-3 update, V Rising is among several games (including Age of Chivalry and the original Vermintide) to gain sufficient compatibility with the Steam Deck for the second-highest rating of their review programme, just short of Verified.
Technically, V Rising has been lowercase P-playable on the Steam Deck since late May, when these software improvements appeared on the ‘Bleeding Edge’ branch of Proton Experimental. Now, though, the update has graduated to the main, stable Proton branch, so you don’t have to risk the potential wonkiness of a work-in-progress. I’ve given V Rising a try on the Steam Deck and it does indeed work, though it’s quick to show why it only got Playable status and not Verified.
Blizzard have revealed that Overwatch 2’s next closed PvP beta starts on June 28th, and it’s set to introduce new tank character Junker Queen. Also coming in the beta is a new map. Blizzard’s announcement tweet promised more information about what’s to come when sign-ups begin tomorrow, June 16th.
First released in 1987 - back when Games Workshop were, arguably, much more fun than they are today - Rogue Trader was the first edition of what would eventually become tabletop miniature megachonker Warhammer 40,000. Rogue Traders, the stars of the setting, are themselves a touch more colourful than your average corpse-emperor enjoyer; freelance explorers given a ship, a packed lunch, and a cohort of space-toughs, and sent off to explore the far-flung reaches of the galaxy. And it’s this unique place in the 40k universe that makes them such an exciting prospect for the setting's first fully-fledged classic CRPG.
First-person survival horror shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart Of Chornobyl has been delayed into 2023, developers GSC Game World have revealed in a new trailer shared on Twitter. The game’s name has also changed to the Ukrainian language spelling of Chernobyl. Watch the trailer below.
Intel have finally launched the first of their Arc Alchemist graphics cards, the Arc A380, but only in China for now. VideoCardz spotted the press release for the small-scale launch, which confirms some of the A380 specs, its comfort zone of 1080p / 60fps on medium quality settings, and a recommended price: 1030 yuan. That’s about £130 / $150, not accounting for regional tax maths.
How much should a 1440p 144Hz monitor cost, a good one, when it's on sale? Normally the answer is around $300, but today Monoprice have gone one further. Their Zero-G 27-in 1440p 144Hz curved monitor has dropped from $250 to $190 - mere pocket change*!
Exaggerations aside, this is a legitimately good price for a monitor of this spec, especially one that has actually attracted reasonable reviews in its category. It ticks a lot of boxes - great contrast, good colour accuracy, reasonable pixel density, a sturdy stand, four display inputs and FreeSync/G-Sync Compatible support. Not bad at all!
*for millionaires, I guess
The RTX 2060 isn't the new hotness that it was a few years ago, but a global pandemic and chip shortage means that the card is still a surprisingly capable option three years later. The cheapest RTX 2060 on Amazon costs £370, but if you're willing to go refurbished you pay way less: just £190.
That's a heck of a deal for an RTX and DLSS-capable graphics card, especially given the GPUs come with a six month warranty from the folks at Laptop Outlet. This Zotac card will run rings around the GTX 1660 Super, the best card you could buy new for this price, especially in games that support DLSS to boost frame-rates.
Microsoft Flight Simulator has been revising its world one country at a time, adding new monuments and landmarks and new photogrammetry to its cities. The latest update, released today, returns to the United States for World Update 10, and includes improved scenery for Seattle, San Francisco, New York and more, as well as landmarks from Disneyland to Blackbeard's Castle.
Microsoft followed up this weekend's not-E3 Xbox showcase tonight with an extended look at a handful of the games shown. That mostly involved middle aged men in jeans talking through their marketing bulletpoints, but there were also a couple of new announcements in between. One of them was that co-op survival-me-do Valheim is heading to PC Game Pass this autumn.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is getting a second year of post-release support. Included on the roadmap is a new free game mode inspired by roguelites. Called The Forgotten Saga, it has Eivor battling against waves of enemies in Niflheim, and try-die-repeating in order to attain unlocks which persist between runs. You'll find a trailer for it below.
It should be a rule that any game which shows a slick, edited trailer at E3 (or not-E3) has to then release a longer, more illustrative piece of footage, too. That way we'll be able to take our dose of hype, then follow it with a dash of reality.
So it is with Outpost, a first-person base-builder with seemingly massive swarms that impressed during the Future Games Show. How does it look in the 8 minutes of playtest footage below? Less impressive - but still compelling.
A few days ago I sat in on a presentation for Lightyear Frontier, a 3D farming and crafting game set on a remote planet at the edge of the galaxy. In fact in the presentation the game was referred to as a "farmadventure", which isn't a portmanteau and you only have to go another centimetere along to get farmventure, which is just about a portmanteau and, furthermore, is fun to say.
Developers Frame Break are keen to emphasise how chilled out Lightyear Frontier is: it's very peaceful, and there's no death (a "survival game without survival"). It's all about ecology and being one with nature. This does, at times, feel slightly at odds with the other eye-catching thing about Lightyear Frontier, which is a bloody massive tractor mech stomping about everywhere.
Stealthy real-time tactics threequel Commandos 3 is being prettied up with an HD remaster that’s set to slip onto Game Pass in September like a frogman onto a Nazi-occupied beach. It’s not the new Commandos game that you might be hoping for, but at least it’s World War something. Synchronise watches by viewing the trailer below.
The Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase has been and gone, but Not E3 is far from over. Including, as it turns out, for Xbox and Bethesda: tonight’s Xbox Games Showcase Extended stream will take a deeper dive into some of the many games that were announced during the main show on Sunday, with new trailers and extended interviews. Liam and I will be liveblogging the whole thing, despite him having stayed up until God-knows-when last night watching Capcom’s Resident Evil and dinosaur genocide announcements.
Barbarian-tinged match-3 puzzler Grindstone is abandoning its exclusivity to the Epic Games Store and venturing into the untamed wilderness of Steam on June 20th, developers Capybara Games have revealed. All updates to the game that released on other platforms such as Apple Arcade and Nintendo Switch will be included. There’s a helpfully explanatory animated trailer to watch below.
The collective JRPG fandom did a little squee and cartwheeled when Persona 5 Royal and Persona 3 Portable were announced for PC at Sunday’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase. There was no word on whether either game would make their way to Steam like Persona 4 Golden, though. Well, never fear, because developers Atlus say both games will be coming to Valve’s storefront, as Eurogamer report. In case you missed the trailer, here it is below.
If you played Hypnospace Outlaw, there’s a high chance you’ll remember Zane “Zane_Rocks_14” Lofton. He’s one of the more memorable characters you meet in Tendershoot’s alternate reality web simulator, an angsty teenage boy whose home page is slathered in camouflage textures and GIFS of exploding handguns. Since release, Zane has become one of Hypnospace’s de facto mascots, a beloved dweeb that is abrasive but also kind of painfully relatable? It’s hard to laugh at Zane’s baggy trousers and love for Linkin Park-esque rap-metal when you grew up in the mid-2000’s. I mean, we all bought a dog lead from Wilkinson’s and hooked it between the belt loops on our jeans at one point, right? …right?
Ahem. Anyway. Announced earlier this year alongside Dreamsettler (a proper sequel to Hypnospace), Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer is an FPS spin-off that stars the fan-favourite teen. Slayers X is framed as being an in-universe project that Zane worked on as a teen, and has been uncovered by his now 37-year-old self, who is determined to finally see it released. There’s a short demo available as part of Steam’s most recent Next Fest, and I’m delighted to say it’s exactly what I hoped it would be.
A free demo of Capcom’s upcoming beastie-slashing action RPG expansion Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak is releasing on Steam today. It’s worth putting aside at least 10GB ready for the install if you’re planning to take a crack at it. Hop onto your canine mount and check out the trailer below for a glance in advance.
While the official way to win 20 Minutes Till Dawn is to survive 20 minutes of monster attacks, I disagree. Like in Vampire Survivors, I think the roguelikelike arcade shooter's real victory condition is spewing so many bullets and explosions and fireballs and lightning strikes and ice shards that the framerate starts chugging. As far as I'm concerned, when the game can no longer process just how ridiculous my run is, I've beaten it and I win. Reader dear, I'm delighted to say I finally managed that in 20 Minutes Till Dawn. I finally won.
The first piece of DLC for Resident Evil Village will release on October 28th, Capcom has announced. Revealed as part of their not E3 livestream, the Winter's Expansion will include three seperate additions to entice fans back into its world of tall vampire ladies and weird dog men.
The first is Shadow Of Rose, a story expansion set after the events of the base game that focuses on Rose, the daughter of Village protagonist Ethan Winters. In an attempt to understand the origin of her mysterious "powers", Rose will enter the consciousness of the twisted mould that was the source of all the bother in both Biohazard and Village. Players will guide Rose through a number of spooky locales, including what appears to be Castle Dimetrescu from the game's main campaign.
When Capcom announced Exoprimal, an action game devised by your six-year-old self where players jump into badass exosuit and then machine-gun roiling hordes of dinosaurs, Alice0 believed that you fought the big lizard-birds with the help of an AI. In a new trailer and deep dive from tonight's Capcom Showcase we learned that in fact the dino-rain is happening because of the AI. It is running combat tests with humans by, er, opening huge wormholes in the sky and dumping hundreds of dinosaurs on us like so many plastic toys.
If this concept sounds as incredible to you as it does to many of us in the RPS treehouse, then you can sign up for an upcoming closed network test here. Entry is open until the 30th of June, and to avoid disappointment make sure you take note of the entry requirements.
280mm is my favourite AIO liquid cooler size - cheaper than 360mm coolers while offering better performance per square inch - you just need a case that can accommodate the slightly larger fans. Normally getting a good AiO of this size costs around £100 to £180, but right now Amazon is offering the MSI MAG CoreLiquid 280R for half price: just £50. That's an awesome value for a high-performance CPU cooler that even includes RGB lighting.
Our pick for the best wireless keyboard is heavily discounted at Amazon today, with the Logitech G915 Lightspeed dropping from £170 to £120. That's a historic low price on a keyboard that editor-in-chief Katharine called 'probably the loveliest keyboard I've ever used'.
High praise indeed, and it was enough to earn a coveted RPS recommendation - even at its original price. Now you can pick up this delightfully clicky keyboard with low profile mechanical switches, a full-size UK layout and a beautiful metal build for £50 less.
Abib the troubadour killed an ancient evil spirit by throwing his knife at it. Tinyfolks is not a "story generator" sort of game, but that fight removed any doubt that it was excellent.
There's no shortage of dungeon-ish turn based combat games, nor of those made of all the usual fantasy archetypes, nor of pixelly low-fi games with bleepy bloopy music. Nor again are we likely to run short of games that combine some or all of the above. But like a good meal, combining even the most common ingredients in just the right way can make them delicious.
It doesn't matter that you're a monarch ousted by evil forces, now set on reclaiming your land within 45 days by fighting tonnes of monsters until your team is tough enough to kill the big nasty. What matters is that you'll have a great time doing it.
Steam Next Fest has launched with, among 1000-plus indie demos, a playable slice of SCP: Secret Files. It’s the latest in a line of games based on the SCP Foundation wiki, a collection of mainly horror-focused stories and faux-reports around a shadowy cleanup organisation and the weird, nature-defying shit they capture and cover up. Judging so far, it’s also shaping up to be perhaps the most complete attempt at an SCP game yet.
Online sci-fi RPG Fallout 76 is revisiting a not-so-beloved setting from predecessor Fallout 3 this September when the free Expeditions: The Pitt update launches from its silo. It’ll be the first time players have been able to venture beyond the borders of Fallout 76’s Appalachia region. Go downtown with the trailer below for more info.
Starfield is the next big new game from Bethesda Game Studios, and it's a pretty big deal because they haven't made something that isn't a Fallout game or an Elder Scrolls game in like... ever. So everyone was pretty excited to see what this new space RPG holds at the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase stream this weekend. And, sure enough, we actually got a pretty big eyeful of it.
Now, keep in mind that this game is set in outer space, the vast expanse and wonders of which we cannot ken. You could do any cool, awe-inspiring thing you want with space. Crystal waterfalls that flow backwards into the sky. Aurora borealis-like lights but so low down they whip along at ground level. Deserts of hot-pink dust sprouting deep blue rock spires. Destiny 2 has some cool planets, for example. Imagine my confusion, then, when the footage of Bethesda's brand new IP made it look like they've accidentally done Fallout or Elder Scrolls again.
My favourite spot in Berband's colourful night city is a tiny quiet backalley bar at a hole in a wall, and my first task in Nivalis will be attempting to recapture that mood. Nivalis is a slice-of-life sim set in the same cyberpunk city as hovercar courier game Cloudpunk, where we'll get to run bars and restaurants, grow ingredients, fish, make friends, and maybe even find love. So like a cyberpunk Stardew Valley? Have a look in the new trailer.
We finally glimpsed our first look at some in-game footage from interstellar RPG Starfield at yesterday’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, and it had the feel of a less retro Fallout 4. Everyone knows that the true heart of any RPG is the character creation screen though. It’s just science. Speaking of which, Starfield’s character creation menus are modelling themselves on some real-life science, namely molecular biology. That’s cool, I think.
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. NotE3 was in full swing this weekend but wasn't the only gawp-o-rama around, with Screenshot Saturday still giving looks at birds, a goth Deus Ex, and a vision of an open-world Sonic the Hedgehog chillout.