Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Abandoned is an upcoming horror game set in a spooky forest that's coming out later this year. It was revealed back in April, and it didn't take long for folks to start comparing it to Silent Hill - it shares a similar brand of eeriness, plus a setting is reminiscent of early PT teasers. Now however, thanks to odd comments from developers Blue Box Studios, some really weird naming coincidences, and a strong desire for more Silent Hills, people actually think Abandoned could be a new Kojima game.

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If you've been struggling to upgrade your PC recently due to the hardware shortage and are thinking about jumping ship to a laptop, then this Asus ROG Strix G513QM is currently £300 off for Amazon Prime Day, taking this normally £1600 laptop down to a much more agreeable £1300. Not bad for a 300Hz display and an RTX 3060 graphics chip, eh?

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The Logitech G502 Hero is down to just £35 for Amazon Prime Day today, matching its previous all-time low price from last year's Prime bonanza. That's a fantastic price for the mouse you - yes you, RPS readers - named your favourite gaming mouse of all time, and a saving of £15 off its most recent price.

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Pity the poor Battlefield 4 players of Boring, Oregon. Battlefield 2042's announcement caused an uptick in players in the US West server region, leading to long server queues for the eight-year-old FPS. The influx of players was large enough for EA to spin up more server capacity to help players get back to the game.

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Magic Red Doors arrived with Call Of Duty: Warzone Season 4 but what players hadn't anticipated were regular doors getting jealous. It seems like there's one door on Verdansk which kills you instantly if you touch it. Clearly, it does not want to be shown up by the silly red ones.

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The 1TB model of the excellent Samsung 860 Qvo is down to a new all-time low price of just £70 today for Amazon Prime Day, saving you £25 off its usual price. It's the cheapest it's ever been, too, making it a great time to pick up this excellent SATA drive and give your storage banks a big old boost.

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The best monitor deal from last year's Amazon Prime Day is back for another round this year, with Samsung's Odyssey G7 monitor falling back down to its all-time low price of £429 (from £550) for the next 48 hours. The 1440p, 240Hz, G-Sync Compatible monitor has a fantastic set of specs for the money, and is sure to be one of the hot ticket items of this year's big Prime Day deals bonanza.

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Bobbing onto our screens in 2018, Sea Of Thieves was perfectly timed to provide the jovial, ultimately unthreatening ambience of Pirates Of The Caribbean, just as that film series became a lot less fun due to the allegations against leading man Johnny Depp. How unfortunate, then, that 2021 should bring a massive Pirates Of The Caribbean crossover to the game, with Captain Jack Sparrow plastered all over it.

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Sundays are for getting vaccinated and feeling the power of Pfizer rush through your veins. Before you stand in line, let's read this week's best writing about games.

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Forza Horizon 5 was announced during last week's Microsoft conference, and it was among the best of E3. Since the show, developers Playground Games have been out talking, including about the Events lab, a new tool shipped with the game that lets you create your own modes.

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Back on March 30th, I wrote about the entirety of Shrek being available to download via Steam for Wallpaper Engine. It was removed within twelve hours and I feel no remorse. But while moderators can remove files from the Steam Workshop, they can't remove them from your PC, and I've kept Shrek as my desktop wallpaper for nearly three months.

Today, I'm removing it. Here is what I've learned.

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Cruelty Squad has the aesthetic of early to mid '90s first-person shooters. No, not Doom and Quake. I'm talking about the trash you don't remember. The hyper-violence, the purple lighting, the repeating textures, the art assets rendered at wildly variable resolutions, the faintly cyberpunk themes.

It's out now on Steam and there's a sensorally aggressive trailer below.

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The debate between whether it's better to climb by simply pushing forward, Assassin's Creed-style, or through deliberate action, Mirror's Edge-style, misses the point that climbing is always cool. A tech demo by UpRoom Games reminded me just how cool climbing is today. It's a greybox playground for you to climb around with a procedural animation system that shifts your weight and positions your hands and feet. Watch a video of it below.

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Alright that's it, E3 is over. A weird year, with the organisers struggling to find their footing after they skipped 2020 and other people filled the gap. A weird year of E3 coexisting with a whole lot of NotE3. Had some good-lookin' games, mind. But that's all both the past and the future, what are you playing this weekend?

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Alright driving game folks, here's an agility test for you. Absolute Drift is free on GOG until midday on Saturday. I believe in your ability to come in clutch and punch the redeem button before the countdown clock ends. This arcade-y racer has you test your drifting skills in free roam challenges and event challenges to the beat of some sweet tunes. GOG are offering the freebie alongside sales on lots of other driving and racing games in their ongoing summer sale.

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I'm happy to report that I've had a successful Steam Next Fest already. I promised myself I'd play at least one of the over 700 demos that are free on Steam until Tuesday—and I did. I've actually played three now, but Toem has been my favorite by far. It's an adventure game about taking photos and helping folks along your way to visit a magical phenomenon. In just over an hour, I went to a bear rave, played games with ghosts, and paid for my bus pass via stamp rally. It was a grand time and I'm keen on playing the full release.

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Netflix has just tossed out another very short teaser trailer for the second season of their Witcher show. I'm happy to tell you that the teaser confirms yes, Geralt will appear in this season. There's probably some other details in there too aside from the existence of the show's main character, but you're probably going to have to go frame by frame to pick them out. Check it out down here.

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Larian Studios' next mega RPG Baldur's Gate 3 ventured forth into early access in October 2020. It's been getting regular hotfixes and larger updates like the Druid class, but don't get antsy as the one year mark approaches. Larian had already said that BG3 would be in early access for at least one year and CEO Swen Vincke has now confirmed that "its not going to release this year for sure." The good news is that another major update, the biggest yet (again) is "around the corner".

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Like many old people with a passion for PC gaming and a flair for foolish stunts, I have bad wrists. I can click these suckers at will, to the surprise and horror of everyone around me. While I've found a mousepad with a wrist rest can help my aching joints, it's hard to find a good one - and especially one suited for gaming. Please, won't someone make a good wrist rest mousepad? Won't someone think of the elderly?

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I know a lot of us are still jealous of the shiny Final Fantasy 7 Remake that landed exclusively on the PS4 last year. Us PC folks have held out hope it would come our way even though Square Enix had nothing to say when FF7R's PS4 exclusivity ended in April this year. The new PS5 upgraded version called Intergrade just launched this month too, also without mention of a snazzy PC port to match. There's still no word. Not officially, anyway. There is a convincing new leak by way of a hidden Epic Games Store listing that specifically mentions the Final Fantasy 7 Remake though. Cloud saves save the day again!

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Sable is one of the many hundreds of Steam Next Fest demos you can play at the moment, and cor, it's a real beauty. Sure, we've known for a while now that Shedworks' desert-roaming hover bike 'em up is stone-cold stunner (especially since much of its art style has been inspired by the equally gorgeous work of the artist Moebius), but seeing it in action is something else. I love gazing at the clearly defined rock strata around Sable's home; I love how the gentle day and night cycle bathes the world in cool blues and purples at dusk and dawn before roaring to life in bright, punchy primaries during the day; and woof, I love the gentle twangs of its lilting soundtrack.

But the thing that surprised me most during its hour-long demo was the way we got to hear Sable's inner thoughts as she chatted to her fellow camp mates. For whatever reason, I wasn't expecting this, and at times it almost felt like I was reading a book - and what a lovely book it was, too.

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On this episode of Ultimate Audio Bang, Imogen and I comb through the shrapnel left by the E3 explosion. There is lots! A charred Randy Pitchford, lots of games like Left 4 Dead, and shooters like Stalker 2, which we have no history with, but it sure look nice.

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Hello again, it's me, the person who does not buy video games merch yet has strong opinions on it. This week, it's the official Destiny 2 toaster, an oft-requested actual bread-cooking device. The gun Jötunn is lovingly nicknamed 'the toaster' for its blocky shape and ability to pop out slices of fiery death, see, so for years fans and jokesters have asked Bungie for a real toaster which looks like it. But this official toaster does not look like Jötunn, and doesn't even look like a good toaster. Boooo.

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I know you're ready to put the Electronic Entertainment Expo to bed for a year. I am too. I'm looking forward to playing a video game this weekend, instead of watching trailers for things I can't download yet. I still haven't played Chicory yet, and all I've wanted to do over the last week is colour in pictures of cartoon dogs. But we can't move on just yet.

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Last night I hopped into Call Of Duty: Warzone Season 4 and had a brilliant time rattling off bullets in the back of an armoured truck. Pure bliss, it was. But alas, all good things come to an abrupt end, as they've been removed only a day into the new season. Apparently players found an exploit which let them use these trucks to turn invisible. Here we go again.

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Just when I thought I was out, Steam Next Fest pulls me back in. To loving video games, that is! Yes, once again Valve has seen fit to flood their digi-store with literally hundreds of free demos, all available for your perusal until the 22nd. That's a whole long weekend of free stuff to play, baby. But, as any Netflix browser knows, too much choice can be paralysing. I've gone through and played as many demos as possible and picked the best here, to give you somewhere to start.

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Another 'World Update' has landed in Microsoft Flight Simulator, this time focused on improving the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Along with updating the landscape with more detail, the update brings detailed models for landmarks ranging from bridges and wind farms to stadiums and... Lego House? Is this a real thing? This is a real thing! Check out that blocky building and more in the trailer below.

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I've been interested in the grappling hooks and swords of Chinese fantasy battle royale Naraka: Bladepoint, and apparently I'm not the only one. The final open beta test has started ahead of August's launch, and it's presently the sixth-most played game on Steam, squeezing ahead of GTA 5 and Rust. Goodness me. Quite a few people up for parkouring around, flinging arrows and spells, and transforming into monsters, then. You could join 'em.

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Ah yes, Roguebook! That game about venturing across the pages of a book and-- No, wait, that was Trials Of Fire. Roguebook is instead the new game from the developers of Faeria, and it's a deckbuilder constructed with help from Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield. It's out now.

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There's a lot in Valorant that feels like Counter-Strike, but Counter-Strike could never do trailers where they introduce new robot killing machines. That's what Valorant's latest character is. Called KAY/O, his main ability is to suppress his enemy's abilities. He'll join the game alongside the beginning of Episode 3 on June 22nd, and the trailer is below.

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The SteelSeries Rival 3, a well-reviewed budget gaming mouse, is even more budget than usual with a £9 price drop on Amazon over the past two months. The Rival 3 now costs just £21, a great price for a mouse with a modern optical sensor, 60 million click switches and three-zone RGB lighting.

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Overcooked 2 seemed to make less of a splash than its predecessor, maybe because both chaotic co-op cook 'em ups are fundamentally similar. It's still a great game though, and it's currently free to keep via the Epic Games Store.

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Cyberpunk 2077 has received yet another round of fixes, in the RPG's grim march from a mess everyone was excited about to a functional game everyone has forgotten about. This one addresses bugs across several quests, and a handful of PC-specific bugs.

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There are a lot of retro first-person shooters around at the moment, but relatively straight recreations of Quake don't interest me. Boomerang X gets at the spirit of those games with a design that's its own.

It's also coming out on July 8th, and there's a new trailer below.

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Scott Cawthon, the creator of blockbuster indie horror series Five Nights At Freddy's, has announced he's retiring. He says he wants to focus his attention on his kids. This comes a few days after many fans were upset (particularly some LGBTQ fans) by the discovery that he had donated large amounts of money to politicians who have repeatedly opposed rights, protections, and support for queer and trans people. He and his family were also then doxed and threatened, which is obviously horrifying. But while he's retiring, the series will live on.

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E3 is finally over for another year, and golly there were a lot of new games announced, weren't there? Having waded deep through the flood of streams from practically every publisher under the sun, we've emerged with our filleted highlights of the best games of E3 2021. With this year's show taking place soley online, we haven't played as many of these as we'd normally do during E3, but these are the games that excited us the most and whose trailers we've had on repeat ever since we clapped eyes on them.

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Elden Ring, there you are. I see you. I see the vaseboys and the big dragon that calls down lightning bolts from the sky. I see the horse which looks more like a goat. But you know what else I see? A floor with a face. A literal face on the floor. And I have not heard a peep from anyone or anything about it. This is the most exciting thing for me, the prospect of interacting with this face-floor. Let me explain why.

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Countless livestreams, announcements and gameplay reveals later, E3 2021 is done and dusted. While it was most certainly an improvement on last year's months-long mess, there was still a lot shown off in a very short space of time. If you missed or completely forgot that Breaking Badman Giancarlo Esposito mentioned Adolf Hitler last Thursday, this recap video is exactly what you need in order to catch up.

E3 2021 was a weird one. There were some cool reveals like Arkane's Redfall, and people lost their minds over Elden Ring, but it was definitely light on WOW moments. Also, there were a few strange things, like that bit where Randy Pitchford bothered celebrities on a movie set for half an hour. Still... Forza Horizon 5 looks great, doesn't it?

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After last week's fun on The Electronic Wireless Show podcast, we then actually had to live through E3, and I, especially, am very tired. This week the show is all about our favourite box art or key art images from the history of games. The episode starts of with a sort of funereal air and ends, as Nate described it, like the final scenes of Fury Road, where we are desperately trying to keep going to the end even as bits of the engine fall off.

There is an improvised Cavern Of Lies, Matthew has some new sweets, and Nate has a poorly crayfish. But we also do an extremely in depth analysis of the original Doom cover art, with reference to classical art.

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The Razer Kraken is the gaming company's staple headset, and has seen constant revision over the years - including a new version in 2019. It's become a solid entry-level option, retailing for around £55, but today the Kraken has reached new depths thanks to a 50% off coupon at Currys PC World in the UK. Now you can pick up this multi-platform headset for just £27.50 with code SAVE50.

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