It's almost time to start your tractor mech engines, as space farming sim Lightyear Frontier will enter early access in early 2024. Developer Frame Break made the announcement during yesterday's Xbox Games Showcase Extended livestream, alongside new footage of multiplayer gameplay.
When I visited Ubisoft Montpellier to play Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown the other week, the developers spoke extensively how about anime and comic books had been a big inspiration for them in creating the game's visuals. As you'll have seen from my big preview, the game itself is a 2.5D platformer that mixes 3D character models and environments with sidescrolling action and dramatic camera movements as hero Sargon doles out his suite of special attacks. But as I was playing I became curious whether the team had ever experimented with going all-in on the anime visuals to create a more illustrated look akin to their excellent Rayman games. So I put the question to art director Jean-Christophe Alessandri and game director Mounir Radi after my demo session.
The Lamplighter's League is an intriguing proposition, with the Battletech tech devs setting aside their big stompy mechs and stepping into the much sneakier shoes of 1930's scoundrels as they wage shadow wars over supernatural artefacts. Its blend of real-time sleuthing and turn-based squabbling impressed Katharine when she snuck her hands on the opening mission last month, heralding it as a game of the year contender.
Big words! Exciting words. As announced yesterday, we'll get to judge for ourselves when it comes out on October 3rd.
This year's Xbox Games Showcase Extended featured games from the ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program, and without it I would never have known about Drag Her!, a fighting game featuring drag queens who've competed on RuPaul's Drag Race and The Boulet Brothers Dragula. The queens turn up in their finest looks and sharpest winged eyeliner, and then proceed to beat the shit out of each other. It's brilliant - if you don't believe me you can play the demo right now.
Hi-Fi Rush is a rocking good time, and the party hasn't stopped yet, baby. Developers Tango Gameworks are adding two new modes to their rhythm slasher in next month's Arcade Challenge update: one where the beat gets faster the longer you survive, and another you could tentatively call roguelike-like where you start off stripped of your abilities.
The update trailer also also shows off some new special attacks, starring distinguished robot CNMN and Smidge the tutorial fridge. It's out July 5th, and there's definitely enough to make me want to pop back in.
A solid grappling hook can redeem many a videogame sin, so it's my earnest hope that the The First Descendant's laser ropes can make up for its bullet spongey bosses. Both are on display in a new gameplay trailer, which also reveals the full game will swing out later this year following a week-long open beta in August. Both the full game and the beta will be free to play, and both will have crossplay - so maybe you can rope in yer Xbox and Playstation pals too.
The price of even high-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs keeps slippin', including the fastest SSD we've ever tested here at planet RPS: the Samsung 990 Pro. This PCIe 4.0 SSD is now available for £146 at Tech Next Day in the UK when you use code TND-10, beating the best deal we found for this drive in May by nearly £20.
Building an AMD Ryzen 5000 or Intel 12th/13th-gen PC? Corsair Vengeance DDR4 RAM is a go-to value choice thanks to its extremely aggressive pricing and stable performance, and today you can pick up a 16GB dual-channel kit of DDR4-3200 CL16 for just £35.99. The same RAM used to cost £60+ less than a year ago, making it a great time to build a new DDR4-based system.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty will have multiple endings, CD Projekt Red have confirmed, but interestingly it will also add in a brand new ending for the base game, too. Game director Gabe Amatangelo recently spoke to WCCFTech about the upcoming DLC, detailing when it takes place in the Cyberpunk 2077 timeline and how it fits into the story.
It sounds like Xbox really wants Starfield to be as bug free as possible, as apparently every QA staff member is working on the game. This comes from Giant Bomb, who spoke with Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty and Xbox boss Phil Spencer. The two spoke about a range of topics to do with Xbox as a whole, but Booty notably claimed that Starfield would be the Bethesda game with the least amount of bugs the developer has ever shipped.
Doom collided with Guitar Hero in 2022's Metal: Hellsinger, a rhythm FPS about bursting demons in time to tunes with singers from metal bands including System Of A Down and Arch Enemy. While you don't need to like metal to enjoy the game, it does add something. So now Hellsinger offers a poppier experience with a new DLC letting you perform violence to the sounds of Gorillaz, Depeche Mode, Icona Pop, and more. Oh, and Down With The Sickness is in there too because hell, why not?
We got a proper look at Starfield (which my brain autocorrects to "Garfield" every single time I read it) on Sunday thanks to a dedicated 45 minute long presentation that showcased the game's various systems, planets and characters in granular detail. 45 minutes is a long time to devote to one video game, you could argue. Todd Howard wasn't even wearing a leather jacket, which sort of felt like seeing Scooby Doo without his dog collar. Like, I'd still know it's Scooby Doo, but it wouldn't look right, you know?
Anyway, all this is to say that the presentation was long. If you're still interested in finding out what was revealed but don't have the time to watch it, however, then good news! I have created a shorter video that highlights the 12 most exciting new details Bethesda showcased as part of the Starfield direct. That's cool, isn't it? Who needs Todd Howard when you can listen to me, a tired man wearing an unironed t-shirt, telling you about the game instead.
Skull and Bones still doesn't have a release date, but Ubisoft have now announced that the game will have a closed beta in August. The developer announced the news that the much-delayed game would be receiving a beta alongside a… sea shanty, which is obviously fitting given the whole it being a pirate game thing, but is maybe the funniest way of doing such an announcement for a game that seems like it's never coming out. You can currently sign up to potentially join the closed beta on the game's website, with the test set to take place August 25-28.
Embracer Group, the corp who've spent several years buying up dozens of video game studios, today announced a financial restructuring that will involve closing studios, cancelling games, and laying off employees. They say this will leave them a "stronger, more efficient company". Their purchases include Gearbox, Crystal Dynamics, Volition, the rights to The Lord Of The Rings, and so many more. Embracer own 138 studios and have over 16,500 people working for them, and it's not clear how many will remain afterwards.
Capcom had a decent showing at their Showcase presentation last night, though it did also deliver the news that the mysterious Pragmata has been delayed once again. The news came in the form of a short trailer that did show off some very brief snippets of gameplay, opening up with an honestly quite fun sequence showing the young girl we've seen in previous trailers making a cute drawing apologising for the indefinite delay.
It's been one baffling decision after the other from Blizzard when it comes to Overwatch 2, and with its latest announcement that you'll have to pay for the PvE content it didn't cancel, you can add another one to that list. While the release date for the first batch of PvE content, titled Overwatch 2: Invasion, dropped over the weekend during the Xbox showcase, it wasn't until late last night that Blizzard shared some more specific details, most notably that you'll have to fork over $15 in order to even play it.
Starfield’s PC system requirements have appeared on its Steam page, and while exploring its possibly too vast collection of planets and facial hair options probably will not have your PC sobbing stress tears, the spacefaring RPG will make some big asks. Especially where SSD space is concerned.
Things aren't going so smoothly for Microsoft, as the US' Federal Trade Commission has now asked a court to temporarily block the $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. As reported by Reuters, the FTC claimed that Microsoft had pointed towards closing the deal as soon as this Friday, leading the organisation to request that a federal judge block any final agreement that might take place before 11:59pm ET, June 15.
There is one good dog in video games and his name is Missile the Pomeranian. Fight me. On second thought, maybe don't fight me. My wrists are quite dainty truth be told, and I'd almost certainly end up pegging it in an actual fist fight. If that happened, I might turn into a ghost that's forever doomed to manipulate objects within arm's reach that may or may not change the course of people's history. Actually, maybe you should fight me on this, because a) that sounds pretty rad actually, and b) I've been playing an early version of the freshly announced Steam demo for the excellent Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective this week, and it's reminded me all over again just how good it is to muck about your environment as a disemodied spirit.
Three more Ace Attorney games are heading to PC. During this evening's Capcom Showcase, they announced the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, including 2007's Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, 2013's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies and 2016's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit Of Justice. It'll arrive early 2024 and there's a trailer below.
Redfall took a beating at launch for its bugs, its lackluster AI, and its bare open world. There were swift apologies from its developers and pledges to improve the experience, a process which started today with the release of Redfall's 1.1 patch. It offers "incremental improvements" to combat, AI and visuals across the open world vampire shooter, alongside a commitment that there will be more updates to come.
It's no secret that last-gen graphics cards are getting huge discounts at the moment, as pent-up demand has been sated and next-generation models are starting to be released from both Nvidia and AMD's lineups. We've covered more mid-range models before, but today we have something a bit different: a truly mainstream graphics card that delivers excellent 1080p performance at less than £200, plus nice extras like ray-tracing hardware, FSR 2 image upscaling and a modern media encoder for streaming and recording gameplay.
I'm talking about the AMD Radeon RX 6600, which is available in the popular Sapphire Pulse configuration for £180 plus £8 shipping over at Overclockers UK - with a free copy of the Resident Evil 4 remake. This is a great price for a card that makes a brilliant upgrade from something like a GTX 1060, RX 570 or RX 580, providing significantly better rasterised performance (up to 2x as fast) while also providing those features that weren't available a few generations ago. Nice!
The Crew Motorfest looks a lot like a Forza Horizon game. It's an open world racer set in O'ahu, Hawaii with street, track and off-road races structured around a festival. Given how good Forza Horizon games are, I am fine with all of these similarities. At tonight's Ubisoft Forward, the third game in The Crew series got a couple of trailers and a relese date: September 14th.
Flash drive deals have proven surprisingly popular here at RPS, so today we're returning with an evolution on the formula: a high-end USB-C flash drive that sports impressive 400MB/s reads and 60MB/s writes, with a capacity of 128GB, for just £13 rather than the usual £19. That's a great deal from my point of view, and well worth reading upwards of four paragraphs about or potentially just clicking through to the product page linked enticingly below...
Star Wars: Outlaws, Ubisoft's open world take on the far, far away galaxy, had its cinematic reveal just yesterday. Today during Ubisoft's press conference it got a first, 10-minute gameplay trailer, showing some cover shooting, a speeder bike chase, and spaceship combat. Find it below.
After announcing they'd be bringing a bunch of their games to virtual reality back in the mists of 2020, it looks like Assassin's Creed Nexus is the first and only Ubisoft VR project to have made it to fruition (RIP Splinter Cell VR). Coming to Zuck's Meta Quest 2 headset later this year, Assassin's Creed Nexus will see you slip into the virtual skins of Ezio, Kassandra and Connor in a new story set across Renaissance Italy, Ancient Greece and colonial America. Come and watch the reveal trailer below. Honestly, why does every VR living room look the same in these game reveals?
I may not have seen Avatar or its sequel, but I like to think that means I'm numb to any preconceptions or bias. I am a man who understands only that there are lanky Smurfs who live in a world you'd get if you mashed Halo and Viva Piñata together. So, having seen roughly 30 minutes of Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora, I can give you the unfettered lowdown of a person who's analysed it with a cold, hard stare. In brief, the game looks rather lovely! If… too lovely. I worry there's a big catch somewhere and I can't put my finger on it.
I don't know about you, but the number of times I've combed the map of a Metroidvania game looking for the next path I can go down, only to discover that, 'Nope, still can't go down this road!' after hauling myself all the there is, simply too many to count. If only there was a way to get my brain to remember which obstacles were where... Happily, Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown has an ingenious solution. Aside from shaping up to be one of the best platformers I've played in ages, it also has a very neat feature that lets you pin screenshots to your map screen, meaning you'll never have to pointlessly backtrack ever again.
Award for the Summer Game Fest demo with the quickest pace goes to Assassin's Creed: Mirage, the upcoming 'Creed that promises to take the series back to its stealthier roots. I saw roughly 20 minutes of gameplay in a hands-off presentation, where our boy Basim does some stabbing and some stealthing in what strikes me as a game that'll honour its promises. When they describe combat as the "backup option", you know they're onto something.
After its big reveal at Summer Game Fest on Thursday, the internet has not taken kindly to Ubisoft's new Prince Of Persia game. There have been reports that The Lost Crown's gameplay reveal trailer (which currently sits across five separate YouTube channels) is continuing to rack up significantly higher dislikes than likes since it got announced, and many seem to have taken issue with the trailer's accompanying rap song and that it doesn't look like a "true" Prince Of Persia game, whatever the heck that means. It's disappointing to see a game instantly dismissed like this, not least because, as someone who's actually been to Ubisoft Montpellier to play the damn thing, this is arguably the most exciting Prince Of Persia game in years - and certainly more interesting than the troubled Sands Of Time Remake.
After several years missing in action, Ubisoft have put a date on their open world first-person Avatar game. Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora will arrive on PC on December 7th later this year, tonight's Ubisoft Forward showcase confirmed, and cor, it sure is cribbing hard on a lot of scenes from the first film, isn't it? Come have a watch of the new six-minute gameplay trailer below.
I gave up on the very last misssion of Marvel's Midnight Suns because I found the finale too gruelling, but all you clever eggs who finished it might be interested in today's update. Along with some fixes and quality of life updates that apply to the whole game, you can now tweak your New Game+ settings to customise what progress you bring into your next stab at Lilith. Want to not be friends with anyone anymore? Now you can!
Sometimes all you need from a video game is a bit of bloodshed with your pals. And sometimes, all you need from a sequel is the first one, but a bit bigger and bit better. Having spent a few hours with third-person co-op shooter Remnant 2, I reckon it's shaping up to be exactly those two things. It remains unconcerned with telling groundbreaking stories or delivering breathtaking cinema in its fights - it doesn't care. From what I've played, it's more about being the looter shooter for those who care about fine-tuning the consistency of the numbers they're able to extract from their foes.
Let me tell you, being at an Xbox Games Showcase in-person is quite the experience. I'd got my pass, got seated in the theatre and finally had a chance to take in my surroundings. There were lots of folks, obviously, either excitedly chatting or awkwardly swivelling their legs to let people pass. Many wore Xbox jerseys. One man had an Xbox logo shaved into his head. A photographer asked our section to smile, so I managed the pained grin of a British person who encounters a stranger on a walk, the bunching of my cheeks pulling my lips into a curl. Meanwhile, those dressed in their Microsoft jerseys crossed their forearms and hollered.
The countdown flashed up on screen and the crowd started chanting, "five, four, three!", and for a second it felt like I was the only one who hadn't supped from a bowl of green liquid or beat my chest to the rhythm of "Play it day one on Xbox Game Pass". The crowd was on another plane of existence and, for brief moments, I was there with them. At other times I felt the physical fatigue of the trailer train more acutely than ever.
Oh, to run a noodle bar in a cyberpunk city. Upcoming slice-of-life RPG Nivalis presents a cosy fantasy: you can stroll through rainy neon streets, do a spot of interior design, chat with your lovers, rivals, business partners and friends. As the soothing and only slightly creepy ASMR-style narrator in the new story trailer reveals, you can also take boat trips while praying you don't cross paths with the murderous android serial killer on the loose.
Ahead of the launch of its Steam Next Fest demo next week, I've been playing a substantial early build of Mimimi Games' latest stealth strategy game, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. After delighting us with Edo-period Japan in Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun and the rootin' tootin' tales of the Wild West in Desperados 3, Mimimi have taken a firm step outside their comfort zone with the high seas island-hopping of Shadow Gambit, offering up an altogether different approach to their tried and tested stealth antics.
As you might have guessed from the name, its eponymous crew aren't bound by the laws of reality in this latest tactical outing, and their extensive suite of magic abilities really open up the playing field for some creative takedowns. But the canvas on which you're painting these elaborate murders has morphed since the days of Desperados 3, with its handful of islands now offering multiple points of entry, a myriad of different missions and objectives and - for the first time ever - repeat visits to the same locations. It's quite the sea change from Mimimi's previous work, but rest assured: the crown jewels of the Mimimi stealth strategy experience certainly haven't been lost to Davey Jones' locker in the process. If nothing else, this is the most fun I've had with a Mimimi game, period - and I cannot wait to dive back in properly when it launches on August 17th.
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's selection is a bit small because Twitter is throwing another technical wobbly and refusing to show the full weekend's posts, but the games are still good! Come enjoy town-building, a little snail, and a great deal of violence in this week's selection.
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Friends, I have a new obsession. A sparkling dopamine oasis l that I simply cannot tear myself away from for more than a few agonising minutes at a time. Oh, Diablo 4? It’s alright, yeah. Quite fun. But it’s recently taken a backseat to something far more illustrious. His name, the subtitles inform me, is Denysov, and he lives in Diablo IV's world of Sanctuary. He is a lone man, with a lone hammer, who, despite nightmare and terror unfolding all around him, come hell or harsh splinters, just works on his lovely door all darn day.
Street Fighter 6 may be the hot new fighting game in town, but like every other fighting game in history, it lacks depth: literal depth, ha ha, el oh el. Diesel Legacy: The Brazen Age is here to fix that, mixing up the classic punch 'em up formula with three lanes for you to manoeuvre around during 2v2 fights. The result looks messy, but also interesting enough that you might want to try the currently-running free open beta.
I can think of a few questions that might entice you into upcoming social sandbox MMO Pax Dei. What if EVE Online took place in medieval europe, except all the fairies the peasants believed in were real? What if you and your pals could make your own village from scratch, spreading then politicking among other settlements and nations? In other words: what if you could play Wurm, but prettier?
It's coming from some veteran EVE devs, who place an emphasis on community, inclusivity and player agency. I suspect I will never play it, but will very much enjoy reading about those who do.