Alright, someone has to apologise to the neighbours and round up the dogs of war, because Total War: Warhammer 3 has been delayed. Previously expected late this year, the trilogy-concluding strategy game based on Games Workshop's fantasy plastic world is now due in 2022. The developers, Creative Assembly say they want to make sure it's good, yeah?
Though a judge largely ruled against Epic Games on Friday in their App Store legal battle with Apple sparked by Fortnite in-app purchases on iOS, clearly that wouldn't be the end. It isn't. On Sunday, Epic filed a notice that yes, they're appealing the ruling. At this point they haven't said precisely what they object to and why but, y'know, they want it to go their way.
Apparently I am one of about six people in the entire world who hates working from home. I can't do it. At home I am lazy, unproductive, and I accidentally do hours of overtime despite this, because I have no place where work ends and home begins. In March 2020, we were all officially sent home for a temporary office closure, the definition of "temporary" soon being stretched as far as I allow my credulity to when I watch The Prestige. It's magical! David Bowie makes thousands of hats!
Anyway, at the tail end of last week I returned to the office, which it turns out is still almost entirely empty. It's like working from home except I have to wear trousers (also Graham is here too so I can kick his chair and throw stuff at him). I spent a few hours on the first day creeping about looking at everything that had been left here for 18 months, and concluded that if our office were a level in a post-apocalyptic game, or a scene in 28 Days later, it would be pretty embarrassing.
Among Us made a hit out of some very basic minigames and complex social interaction. Surviving against the Imposters as they stab and lie their way through a game might rely more on the players than on the game, but you can craft a more complex base game with a few mod additions - the best of which we've rounded up right here. While you can’t mod your friends, you can mod the game, building on the anxiety-ridden camaraderie crusher by adding new roles and new modes to the basic format. Below, you’ll find out how to fall in love or enact the rule of law (by killing) with our guide to the best Among Us mods.
Remember that brief period in the 00s where everyone had a mobile phone, but none of them could take decent photos, so at least one girl per friendship group also had to have a small digital camera? Laboriously uploading and tagging. These are the photos that come up on your Facebook Memories, reminding you that for a brief period during your final year of school you started wearing 50s-ish neck scarves, for some reason.
The little black-and-white puzzle adventure game Toem, in which all problems are solved with a camera, reminds me of that. Not because you are able to make disasterous or whimisical fashion choices - you very much are, mostly in the hat department - but because you just take photos of everything, for the fun of it, to remember this thing you saw. Wonky-focused snaps of a flower, or a ladybird, or a nice building (poorly framed because you can't get all of it in shot). This isn't really photography for the camera nerds interested in lenses or different exposures. This is photography as a joyful insta-record of your life. I was here, I did this thing, it was good.
William Blake once wrote: "Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, and Eternity in an hour." Shut up, Blake. This is Deathloop. It is a full-blown action-comedy with a double jump. You get a sideways dash and a gun that splits to become two, smaller guns. If I see anyone trying to be too smart about this game, in which a time-looping assassin tries to break free of hilarious eternity by murdering many people who deserve it, I will look at them with hollow eyes and say: "In Deathloop you regularly snap necks by 270 degrees." Turn away, poets and stealth likers. This is not your daddy's Dishonored.
When Bungie announced last year that they were reviving Destiny 2's serious PvP weekend event mode, Trials, they said "It's important that this doesn't go out half-baked." Reader dear, it went out half-baked. But! Seventeen months and one revamp later, Trials Of Osiris is good now. Really good. With generous new reward systems, the option to queue solo, and a few anti-cheater measures, the return of Trials this weekend has seen a huge surge in player numbers and been, like, actually fun.
The makers of Oxenfree have started teasing the upcoming sequel via audio transmissions in the original game. Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is set to arrive sometime next year, and it'll feature villains who're causing mysterious radio signals that mess with electronics. But it seems they're already up to no good, because an update to the original Oxenfree has introduced these spooky transmissions, which you can hear in several different areas in the supernatural thriller.
Looking to learn how to fish in Genshin Impact? Genshin Impact’s 2.1 update is finally here, and it introduces an entirely new mechanic that will gives you something else to procrastinate searching for your missing sibling with: fishing! Before you can become Teyvat’s most accomplished angler, though, you’ll need to complete a short quest and become familiar with the fishing mechanic. Here’s everything you’ll need to know about fishing in Genshin Impact.
Sundays are for staring at Mr Muscle, debating for a second whether you could take him, then coming to the conclusion that you absolutely couldn't. Before you consider things, let's read this week's best writing about games.
It's always been a surprise that more games haven't followed in the footsteps of Crusader Kings, but Star Dynasties looks to give it a go. It's a space strategy game about growing your space empire, getting space married, and having space affairs. It left early access at the beginning of the month.
The Eternal Cylinder was first shown as a prototype six years ago. Back then, Adam described it as "Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg by way of Philip José Farmer, Icepick Lodge and Hieronymus Bosch, all set in the shadow of a hungry horizon." The prototype was a personal project of ACE Team co-founder Carlos Bordeu, who said that he wasn't yet sure what you would do in the game moment to moment.
Now the game is reaching the end of its journey. ACE Team have announced you'll be able to flee the planetary rolling pin on September 30th.
Epic's court case against Apple reached a conclusion yesterday, at least temporarily, but the judge's ruling didn't only address the big issues of app stores and payment systems. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez also offered an answer to a question raised during the trial: what is a game? Most surprisingly, Gonzalez's definition is pretty great.
iOS app developers must be allowed to direct users towards payment options other than those provided by Apple, a US judge has ruled in the Epic v. Apple case. Apple have 90 days, until December 9th, to comply.
I thought the air would be cleared by the tremendous thunderstorm that rattled my windows this week, but no. We are still all muggy. This is the worst of between times, where it is not quite warm enough to go without a hoody or a light cardigan, but definitely not cool enough that your t-shirt doesn't get stuck to both your back and your rucksack because of the sweat. Even though the rucksack said it had a special 'moisture wicking' bit of material on it to avoid this situation. WELL! I shall just cast my rucksack down this weekend and play games instead.
I loved the wall-busting, door-blocking, remote-camera-ing gadgets that Rainbow Six Siege gave players, but the community quickly outpaced my ability to compete with them. That's why I'm looking forward to Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction. It broadly gives you the same toys, but you're using them against AI-controlled alien mutants. I'm traditionally alright at competing with those.
There was a new trailer showing the gadgets and operators in action during last night's PlayStation event, and you'll find it below.
'Frasier looking at video games' is the latest single-purpose Twitter account spreading across the games industry. Each tweet features the same still from the sitcom Frasier featuring Frasier Crane looking out his apartment windows, but in each the Seattle skyline has been replaced by a different videogame landscape.
So I ask you, if you were Frasier Crane, what videogame would you like to gaze upon from your fabulously expensive apartment?
It's the 35th anniversary of the Konami code, the string of button presses that first activated cheats in Gradius on the NES in 1986, but which would feature in many later Konami games as well. To celebrate the birthday of up up down down left right left right BA, Konami have produced some lofi hip hop to chill, study and/or relax to.
I don't know my carburetor from my timing belt drive pulley, so much so that I had to Google "car engine parts" in order to find a second reference for this sentence. The Forza Horizon series mostly operates on my wavelength, letting me be excited by cars because they're shiny and have smooth lines and go fast, without me needing to know their innards.
The list of cars so far confirmed for Forza Horizon 5 might mean different things to you than it does to me, then. To me it means that the Jaguar XJ220 I had as a toy when I was 8 is in there, but maybe you have opinions about different kinds of Land Rover.
I came to Final Fantasy IV (or II, if you're American) pretty late in the day. At the time, back in the mists of 1991, it was never actually released in the UK. I was also just three-years-old then, but that's besides the point. Instead, we had to wait another decade until it got a proper UK release, where it landed on the original PlayStation in 2002. However, because I was young and naive and far too wrapped up playing Final Fantasies VII-IX at that point, it never even occurred to me to look back down the Roman numeral line and pick it up. Heck, I even missed its appearance on the GBA in 2006 - arguably the last 'best' version of this early 90s classic. It wasn't until the 3D Remake arrived on the Nintendo DS in 2008 that I finally sat up and took notice - a whole 17 years after it first came out.
But cor, I'm glad I did, because Final Fantasy IV is still arguably one of the best Final Fantasy games ever made, and is easily the best (or second best, depending on who you ask) of the older retro ones. If there's one Final Fantasy game you make time for over the next few months, make it FFIV.
The past week or so has been Back To School time in the UK, also known as the season of adverts on TV about protractors and pencil cases, and posts on Facebook showing a six-year-old standing by a front door and wearing their new school uniform. A dance as old as time. I remember getting a blue jumper that was two sizes too big for me so I could grow into it. Remember it like it was yesterday.
But enough about school itself, a time in my life that I hated to an extraordinary extent and shudder to think of even now. We move to happier things, i.e. games, and in particular the assumption I'm making that now your kids are out of the house for most of the day, you'll have more time to play games. Here are three new indie games that came out in the last month or so, that I feel are apposite for a back-to-school theme.
It must be a typical human fear to not like things with deathly pale faces, shadowy eyes, and suits. I know I'm certainly not a fan, but this specific type of villain has a habit of showing up in spooky games, films and TV series. Last night, paranormal action-RPG Ghostwire: Tokyo got a new trailer as part of the PlayStation showcase stream, and it's chock-full of these baddies that look an awful lot like the Gentlemen from Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Sony’s DualSense pad is a lovely bit of peripheral design; it’s a shame, then, that figuring out how to use the PS5 controller on PC is a right old pain in the thumbstick. Without the Microsoft-masterminded, plug-and-play sensibilities of Xbox controllers, the PS5 controller often needs some help to get working on a Windows machine. It’s all doable, though, and this here guide will walk you through the setup process as well as how to get the most out of different games.
The sport of Americaball was about the last thing I was expecting to enjoy in 2019. Since then, I've skipped an entry but come back for Axis Football 2021 and found myself impressed despite having higher standards now.
It may have taken a long iterative route, but this is becoming a strong sport series even if you're not a fan of pooting the old dogskin.
Previously announced at The Game Awards 2020, cute adventure game Tchia received a brand-new trailer at last night’s PlayStation livestream and it looked gorgeous.
Tchia is an open world game set in a fictional series of islands, inspired by New Caledonia - a collection of islands that are in the Pacific but remain a French-administered territory. Our latest glimpse at Tchia was light on new details about the game but it still gave us updated looks at the vibrant environments, modes of traversal and cast of characters. Take a look at the trailer below.
In just four days Arkane's new time-looping stealth 'em up Deathloop will be part of our lives, and last night the devs treated us to a new trailer telling us a few titbits about the game's story. Of course, like most of the other trailers, it's also full of sneaking, cool powers, lotsa guns, and excellent fashion. It's almost like we're stuck in a timeloop ourselves, watching main character Colt slay his way through semi-familiar areas in new ways. I can't get enough of it.
I didn't realise how annoying I found main quests in RPGs until I played a game that didn't force one on me. That game is Wartales, an upcoming tactical open world game from the developers of Northgard, Shiro Games. It plonks you into a fairly mundane medieval world - in the sense that there' are no wizards's no magic, elves, or grand drama for you to fix - where you can just exist as mercenary doing as you please. It's coming out in early access at some point in the near future, and after having a go of the demo, I spoke to game director Nicolas Cannasse about why they chose to make a game that sets you free, rather than railroading you into some giant mission.
Reader comments have always been an incredibly important part of RPS, but sifting through them all often fell to the RPS staff. Since we were only looking at them during work hours, we'd often be slow to respond, and sometimes miss out on discussions entirely. The good news is that we've now got proper official comments moderators to help keep the conversation going, both between yourselves and between you and the wider RPS team. So please give a warm welcome to Felisha Dela Cruz and Paolo Balmes.
Radiohead are releasing a digital exhibition to celebrate the 21-year anniversary of their Kid A and Amnesiac albums, and it'll be available on the Epic Games Store this November. It's called the Kid A Mnesia Exhibition, and from the sounds of things we'll be able to explore some sort of interactive environment while we listen to the band's old iconic tunes. This certainly wasn't an Epic exclusive I was expecting, but it sounds pretty cool nonetheless.
Developer 343 have announced that Halo Infinite’s next multiplayer technical preview is “targeted” to arrive on September 24th.
Given it's called Lost In Random, you'd expect Zoink Games' new game to be filled with all sorts of oddities and twists and turns and things. Well, it sort of is. And it sort of isn't. I had hoped it would surprise me more, actually. This is a strategy-combat-meets-adventure game that's solid fun and has some great personality, but it gets a little too comfortable to knock you for six.
During tonight's PlayStation livestream, we got a longer look at Square Enix's Forspoken. It's a third-person, open world action game in which you can go free running across a fantasy world, but the new trailer focuses on combat and on protagonist
For a sleepy guy, Alan Wake is moving at high speed. From leaked news of a remaster last week to an official announcement this week to tonight, when we got a first trailer and an imminent release date: October 5th. Watch the trailer below.
We already knew that Uncharted 4 was headed to PC thanks to its inclusion in an investor report earlier this year. Now it's official. Uncharted: Legacy Of Thieves Collection is headed to PC, and it contains not only Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, but Uncharted The Lost Legacy, too. There's a new trailer below.
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Remake was announced during tonight's PlayStation livestream. This is confirmation of what had been long rumoured, including the detail that the remake would be developed by Aspyr. There's a teaser trailer below.
Samurai yokai battler Nioh is free to download and keep from now until September 16th via the Epic Games Store. It's the latest in Epic's endless line of freebies, but if you're desperate to pay some money for a game, there's also a big September Savings sale underway.
Every year, I ask: is this the one? Is this the year where I get back into Football Manager? Throw all my books and films and other games away and boil my cultural consumption down to the media equivalent of Huel. Everything I need in one entertaining paste.
I'm asking it again right now. Football Manager 2022 will release on November 9th, and Sports Interactive have announced that this year it'll also be available on day one via Xbox Game Pass.
Welcome to the RPS guide on how to clean a mechanical keyboard, something Graham specifically told us to do a while back, complete with a look at the revolting crud medley that had accumulated within his own mechanical board. His cleaning technique was pretty good too, though having recently Kim and Aggie’d my way through a guide on how to clean a PC, I reckon we can do better – no wet wipes required.
I used to hate dice in games. If I wanted to play Dingoes & Daggers I'd play it, you know? Even with those choose your own adventure books as kids, we'd just sort of assume that things went a particular way, because who has the time to start again for no reason? And now every game in the world (all of them) has cards in. Ach. I've even played several building games with cards, and I still can't decide if it really works.
Dice Legacy is, on the surface, a building game based entirely on rolling dice. Dice and cards obviously aren't the same, but they share a big chunk of territory. And after living there for most of this week, I am prepared to lie down and let Death take me from here. Dice Legacy drove me goddamn insane.
You might have heard Splitgate described as "Halo meets Portal", a useful shorthand for those of us with brains too tired to describe it more colourfully as "a gun learns physics" or "Benny Hill gets a battle rifle". However you describe it, Splitgate is a belter of a multiplayer arena shooter, born of gimmickry, yet graduating with honours, it's a grin-delivering game of tight, gun gymnastics and wacky Loony Tunes doorways, and just the right amount of frustrating to make you sweat and launch into another scramble for the bazooka in the middle of the map.