Piranha Bytes are returning to their post-apocalyptic sci-fantasy world with Elex 2, announced today. The sequel to their 2017 RPG will continue the story of Jax, trying to reuinite factions against a new threat and all that. Point is: yes, you still have a jetpack. Check out the cinematic announcement trailer, which has real 'angsty anime music video' vibes, below.
A while ago it was rumoured that Call Of Duty: Warzone would get some magic red doors for fast travel. Turns out those doors are being installed right now in preparation for Season 4, which drops on Thursday. Oh, and there's a new event about raining satellites? A new gulag's also being popped in, alongside a new zippy vehicle. But one thing remains, and that's Nakatomi Plaza. I'm glad it's sticking around for the foreseeable.
Bad news for owners of older Nvidia graphics cards this morning, as the graphics card maker has confirmed they're ending support for all of their desktop Kepler GPUs starting this October. That means no more Game Ready drivers, performance enhancements or bug fixes for people with GTX 600, GTX 700 or GTX Titan cards.
This E3 had a lot more zombies than I was expecting, but you know what? I'm always down for more co-op zombie shooter shenanigans. World War Z developers Saber Interactive have announced a new version of the game, World War Z: Aftermath, which will arrive later this year. It will add new zombs, a new melee system, first-person mode, cross-platform multiplayer, and a bunch more. Aftermath will cost $40 for the whole thing, or $20 if you already own WWZ.
In addition to announcing their brand-new Blade 14 laptop last night, Razer also used their E3 2021 presser to give us an update on their Project Hazel smart face mask, which was first announced earlier in the year at CES. After listening to community feedback, Razer have added some new features to their upcoming N95 respirator, including a new anti-fog coating and, my favourite, interior RGB lighting. Oh yes, folks. It's CHROMA TIME.
It's the future and you're living on a space station in the great beyond! But the future is bad, and you're only a human consciousness in an failing artificial body owned by a corporation who want you back. That's how it goes in Citizen Sleeper, a sci-fi slice-of-life RPG announced this week by the creator of In Other Waters. I am certainly up for visiting a distant lawless space station to eek out a living, thwart a corp, and maybe even make some friends. Check out the announcement trailer below.
Capcom have kicked off their E3 presentation for 2021 by leading with some hot, sizzling, not at all surprising news. They are in fact planning to develop DLC for their newest and shiniest RE game. That's right, Resident Evil Village is going to have some DLC at some point. When? They didn't say. What? They didn't say that either. It sure is coming though. Oh, and so is the free multiplayer deathmatch mode Re:Verse. That's launching next month after it was delayed.
So far, E3 2021 has all been about games, games, games and more games, but those green snakey folks over at Razer have also taken the opportunity today to show off some of their new gaming hardware today, including their all-new Razer Blade 14 gaming laptop. Not only is this the world's thinnest 14in gaming laptop, but it's also their first such device to come with an AMD CPU - and it looks rather lovely, if I do say so myself, especially when this super slim laptop is also going to be available with one of Nvidia's RTX 3080 graphics chips inside it, too.
AMD's high performance Ryzen 9 3900X processor has hit a new low price on Newegg today, where you can pick it up for just $420 - down from a list price of $500.
Cyberpunk action RPG The Ascent is queued up to launch next month and it's just popped up with a fresh trailer. Developers Neon Giant have let on an extra quick look at some more co-op cyberpunk shoot 'em upping here in the new video. Good news for the subscription service fans as well. The Ascent has announced that it will be joining Xbox Game Pass for PC on its launch day in July.
External hard drives are hard to find at a good price right now, as miners of the new Chia cryptocurrency have purchased drives in huge numbers. However, there are still good deals to be found from time to time, including thi 5TB Expansion Drive from Seagate, which is down to £84.94 at Ebay right now when you use the code SHOP4LESS. That's a respectable savings from this drive's normal price of around £105, and makes it around £15 cheaper than the nearest comparable drives on Amazon.
First-person stabber sequel Chivalry 2 launched last week, and apparently that was just the beginning. Developers Torn Banner Studios yesterday declared that the game will "at least double in size" with free content updates, and gave a peek at what they're working on. A fancy city map, for one, which you can see in the new video dev diary below.
Cheekily-named Happy Game is the next puzzle-y adventure romp from the same folks that created point and click 'em ups Creaks and Chuchel. This one is about a little boy having an absolutely messed up nightmare. Here I thought my nightmares were bad. This kid absolutely has me beat. Happy Game is still looking terribly swell, but Amanita Design have announced alongside the trailer that it's being moved back to release in autumn of this year.
The developer of swell narrative games Her Story and Telling Lies teased his next project last summer with a rather redacted store page. Half Mermaid and Sam Barlow's next game, Immortality, has now been slightly more revealed to be a story about the disappearance of movie star Marissa Marcel. We don't know much more than that, but it sure does sound like another twisty mystery is in store.
Upcoming "tiny MMO" Book Of Travels, has finally made that big decision. I've been itching to get my hands on this smaller, gorgeous online game by the studio behind the Shelter series and the time has nearly come. Might And Delight have announced that Book Of Travels is setting out on its early access journey in August.
Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls VI way back at E3 2018, then promptly started saying "Sorry, what, I can't hear you, gotta go" and leaving whenever anyone raised it again, or making beeping noises with their mouth then saying "Excuse me, I have a phone call". They did not show TES6 at E3 2021 either, instead focusing on Starfield, but their new sci-fi RPG's trailer might possibly be hiding a clue to TES6's setting. You see, tiny marks on one spaceship console do look like a map of High Rock and Hammerfell.
Oh Elden Ring, now that we've seen a proper trailer, and a large handful of screenshots, it's time to comb both for clues about what's old and new compared with From Software's past Souls joints. One of the neatest new bits, which I think will actually impact how I play, is how From have expanded the summoning system for Elden Ring. Souls games have previously let you summon NPC characters and other players to fight beside you. According to an interview with game director Hidetaka Miyazaki, Elden Ring will also let you summon your enemies, and I'm simply thrilled by the idea of turning baddies into my sidekicks.
RPS have been writing about the upcoming hellish, meaty, yet gorgeous-looking RPG Death Trash for years, and now we finally know when we'll get to play it. It's coming out in early access on August 5th, inviting players to a cyberpunk wasteland full of pure disgusting stuff - like giant flesh monsters and collecting your own puke. But honestly, it looks great.
You know, I've never been massively into Square Enix's games, but this time, I have to hand it to them. In an E3 week that's otherwise been a fairly tame affair, it took some real chutzpah to announce not just a big-budget original property, but one that's a direct lampoon of one of the biggest licenses in Hollywood. Gordon Galaxy And His Funny Space Mates is the sort of genius you might usually expect to come from the very fringes of the indie market. A whipcrack satire, thrown together by a lone hobbyist with nothing to lose, and looking to get a few laughs before the cease and desist orders come in. But no: this is a full-on, big budget, triple-A endeavour - and crikey, are Squeenix ever playing with fire here.
Bethesda's upcoming space RPG Starfield bagged itself a release date last night (November 11th 2022, in case you missed it), but we still don't know a whole about what we'll actually do in it. In a recent interview, executive producer Todd Howard said "it's like Skyrim in space", though I doubt that means exploring draugr-filled asteroids. Slightly more interestingly, Bethesda's managing director Ashely Cheung compares it to Star Wars.
"For me, Starfield is the Han Solo simulator. Get in a ship, explore the galaxy, do fun stuff," he says.
Somehow I'd missed that Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong, unlike most of the other VTM games these days, is not interactive fiction. Nope, apparently a 3D walking-around sort of "narrative RPG", made by the studio behind 2018's curious The Council. Huh! I'm interested. A new trailer out E3 introduces us to one of the three protagonists we'll switch between, Leysha - a Malkavian. Her fashion is truly great.
I've been after a shooter that'll loosen my grip on Call Of Duty: Warzone and I think Battlefield 2042 might be it. Having watched the gameplay trailer at Microsoft and Bethesda's E3 showcase, it's large-scale shooty bang in areas exclusively ravaged by tornadoes and storms. Clear skies and an easy shot? Nah mate, not any longer. Have a tornado.
There was a moment over the weekend where Alice0 pointed out that a lot of people are remaking Left 4 Dead - apart from Valve. I have mentioned this before, but playing L4D2 accounted for about 60% of my time at university. I have a tattoo of the safe house symbol on my ribs (it is terrible).
The Left 4 Dead formula is simple on paper - small team of co-op players vs monster horde, getting from point A to point B with potential incidental side objectives on the way - but is tough to nail. You need to get the mix right. And this year's E3 has revealed a lot of people are rolling up their sleeves to have a go. Let's have a look.
I get a childlike sense of glee from playing games that let me run around as a miniature human in a world that's far too big for them. Add a dash of Pikmin to that, and you've really caught my interest. The newly announced puzzle platformer Tinykin seems to provide exactly that: it's about a very small astronaut exploring a giant house with the help from lots of little one-eyed alien pals.
"Get in a ship, explore the galaxy, do fun stuff": that's Bethesda's Starfield in a nutshell, according to executive producer Todd Howard. The first time I read that neat little triptych in yesterday's Washington Post interview, my brain skated over it. It's one of those broad, sweeping statements that promises something so big you end up disregarding it by default. But then I went back to it, and after forcing my mind's eye to hover over the words like a fat hawk, the words really sank in. The middle three, in particular.
Explore the galaxy. That, right there, is a premise that space games have always tended to fall short on over the years, and I'd forgotten how badly I wanted it fulfilled. Speaking bluntly, science fiction is one of the biggest things in my life. Exploring the galaxy is a big deal to me, and yet, the experience space games have delivered in the past has never quite been the one I've been after. Now, I'm daring to ask myself how I'd feel if this time, it was.
In 2022, Fallout 76 will let players explore beyond the reaches of Appalachia for the first time. Bethesda are adding Expeditions to their post-apocalyptic MMO, which will allow former vault-dwellers to adventure in other areas of the Fallout universe. The first one might be familiar to folks who played some of Fallout 3's DLC too, because it's sending us back to The Pitt (that is: radiation-ravaged Pittsburgh).
The studio behind Northgard and Evoland are jaunting into yet another genre, this time an open-world RPG with turn-based tactical combat. Shiro Games last night announced Wartales, a game about leading a band of mercenaries in the aftermath of an apocalyptic plague. It looked like an unfatastical medieval world in the trailer until I saw a colossal crest of black fur rolling through a forest and OOH what is this. See for yourself in the trailer below.
As revealed at the Xbox and Bethesda E3 showcase this weekend, Rare's multiplayer open world pirate 'em up Sea Of Thieves is about to have 100% more Jack Sparrow than it previously did. Sea Of Thieves: A Pirate's Life is a new Pirates Of The Caribbean-themed story campaign featuring five Tall Tales, and it's coming free to the game on June 22nd. Why, that's quite soon!
And look, I'm not saying that the Pirates Of The Caribbean films do not form a billion dollar franchise, but when you tell me that Sea Of Thieves is getting the "Why is the rum gone?" man, I know what sort of feels like the better get for whom.
Crucial's MX500 SSD is one of the best budget SATA drives around and today you can pick up a 500GB model for a new all-time low price of just £42 in the UK. The price drop comes courtesy of Amazon UK, who have clearly forgotten that their big annual Prime Day bash starts next week on Monday June 21st, not today. Still, this is a great price for a 500GB drive, and one well worth snapping up before it disappears.
I've not yet watched the trailer for Wizard With A Gun, announced during last night's Devolver Digital stream at E3. But I bet you my entire house I can tell you what's in it. If I guess wrong, I'll email you my house. If I guess right, you have to read the rest of this post. Deal? Sorry, too slow. Reading the word "deal" counted as agreeing to the deal, I'm afraid, so let's play.
I'm guessing the trailer will feature a Wizard, who possesses a gun. Here's the trailer. Let's see if I am correct, or if I have ruined my family's life by promising to email their house to loads of strangers.
Puzzle-platformer Minute Of Islands sort of feels like a fairytale. Like a lot of stories for kids, the narration is simple, almost sing-song and poetic in tone. It tells the story of Mo, a self-taught engineer who lives mostly underground, tending to the bio-mechanical engines operated by four giants - brothers, in fact. The brothers hand-crank the machines to filter and purify the air, which would otherwise become filled with poisonous fungal spores.
When the engines break down one day, Mo must brave the surface, checking on her family and growing increasingly paranoid and bitter at her unappreciated sacrifice as she breathes in the spores. But the actual events, and the things you see as you jump and climb around the archipelago Mo lives on, present a jarring contrast to the narration. The narrator points out a dead whale. She does not describe the way the whales intenstines are spilling onto the beach, the bones of its spine are exposed, or how its eyes have been eaten by mangy, one-legged seagulls.
As E3 2021 starts to wind down as quickly as it wound up, tonight we got the PC Gaming Show. Down here it's our time! It's our time down here. We got new trailers for a few things we've seen announced over the weekend already, but also some brand new announcies for some very cool looking things - like the glorious melancholy of Far: Changing Tides, the unbearable cuteness of being in Tinkykin, and the cybergrim of Mechajammer
I've longed for a new SSX snowboarding game for years, and recently the closest thing I've had to look forward to is Riders Republic. Shredders, shown during tonight's Microsoft conference, might take its place, though. For one, its a dedicated snowboarding game.
Okomotive, the makers of Far: Lone Sails, have announced their next game is moving away from sandy deserts and getting into the sea. Far: Changing Tides is an exploration game where you're stuck on an abandoned ship in the middle of a drowned world, searching for safety. The world looks bleak, but the art-style is lovely. Its predecessor is an RPS fave too, so this will be one to watch.
After spending several years making vintage Final Fantasy games look worse with remastered re-releases toting blurry graphics and ugly menus, Square Enix might give people what they actually wanted in the first place. During their E3 showcase today, Squeenix announced a "Pixel Remaster" series of Final Fantasies I through VI. Information is vague right now but they sure do look like ye olde FF games with ye olde pixel art.
Obsidian's Honey I Shrunk The Kids-like survival game Grounded has many wonderful creatures, including some excellent ants that Sin said she would die for. Unfortunately, it also has terrifying spiders, and the developers thought it would be a good idea to add an even bigger one. The game's Shroom & Doom update drops on June 30th, bringing with it new mushroomy structures, and the Broodmother.
Microsoft's Xbox and Bethesda Games E3 showcase was chock full of incredible-looking games, but the one that stood out the most for me was Sad Cat Studios' stunning debut, Replaced. It's a 2.5D sci-fi action platformer set in a grim dystopian city, but heavens to betsy, it has the most gorgeous pixel art I ever did see.
If you missed Square Enix's E3 2021 showcase this evening, worry not, as we've rounded up all the important news, trailers and PC announcements right here in handy list format. While not super heavy on big new exclusives (alas, still no news on FF16 or when Final Fantasy VII Remake might be leaving the console realm for PC sadly), but we did get to see the world premiere of Eidos Montreal's new Marvel Guardians Of The Galaxy game, as well as the first gameplay footage of Team Ninja's hotly rumoured Final Fantasy Origin game. Whether you need a recap or just plain missed it in all the E3 excitement, here's everything you need to know.
Who could forget dear Rat Boy? As revealed at the Xbox and Bethsda E3 2021, next year brings us A Plague Tale: Requiem, the further adventures of rat-whisperer Hugo and his sling-wielding sister Amicia.
Little is yet known about this sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence, except that it is a direct sequel and will once again feature the medieval French siblings "doing whatever it takes to survive a brutal, uncaring world."
The larger part of the Microsoft Flight Simulator announcement at tonight's Microsoft E3 showcase was that it's coming to Xbox Series X|S. There was a brief glimpse of something for us at the end of the trailer, though: there's a free expansoin coming later this year to tie-in with Top Gun: Maverick.