Rock, Paper, Shotgun

For the past three months, I've been gasping to tell someone about the next game from the makers of Mutazione. I got to see a sneak peak of it back in March at GDC, but I've been sworn to secrecy ever since. But at long last, Saltsea Chronicles has made its debut at tonight's Day Of The Devs stream, and I can finally unburden myself and let out 90 days' worth of fizz pop excitement for this gorgeous new adventure game.

Set on a flooded, post-apocalyptic Earth, creative director Hannah Nicklin described it to me like this: "What if you were watching Star Trek, but you get to choose where they go, who's on the adventure and what they get to say?" It's a tantalising premise, especially when it's all packaged up in the same crisp, pastel colour palette as the perpetually stunning Mutazione. The Star Trek reference isn't just for show, either. You might only be visiting different islands rather than whole planets during the course of Saltsea Chronicles, but it does have a natty, Alexander Courage-grade theme tune that plays between its chapters. The most exciting thing about this oceanic trek, however, is its incredibly cool save system that lets you dip in and out of different story branches to explore different paths and opportunities as you see fit. Let me tell you all about it.

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Do I want to play another game where someone isolates themselves in hopes of getting over their sadness? Apparently, I do, because I quite like the look of Quantic Dream's Under The Waves. We were first introduced to this underwater sci-fi adventure during Geoffcom's Opening Night Live showcase last year, and now we get to see a little bit more in the new trailer revealed during this year's Summer Game Fest. Take a look at the trailer below, but if you're afraid of the ocean then maybe give this one a miss, yeah?

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Kazuma Kiryu is one of my favourite dads. From his humble beginnings as a young man hitting punks with bicycles in Yakuza 0, through his brief time leading a crime family after hitting punks with bicycles, all the way through to hitting a punk with a bicycle for the apparent final time in Yakuza 6, I've loved watching him take half of Tokyo under his wing, and loved watching him hit punks with bicycles. Seeing him back in action in a new trailer for the upcoming Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, aw, I wish Sega had let Kiryu retire. My poor dad earned it.

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If you, like me, just got disconnected while spam-clicking your mouse to kill demons in Diablo 4, you're not alone. Since about 9.30pm BST, servers seem to be down in Europe, at least. Upon trying to log back in, it's currently showing a long queue time that, when it ticks down to zero minutes remaining, will show error code 300202 before closing the game entirely. Blizzard are looking into it as we speak.

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Seems like there'll be plenty more bloodthirsty creatures and god-like monsters to get a'brawling with in Remnant 2 - that's the case from the looks of the new trailer revealed during this year's Summer Game Fest, at least. We've already seen a teaser of Gearbox Publishing's upcoming action-survival sequel, but this one seriously pulls out all the stops. You can cast your peepers over the new trailer below.

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Some time back I made fun of the preview for Immortals Of Aveum because a) it was quite a silly hands-off preview and b) Immortals Of Aveum is very clearly a game that needs to be played to properly get to grips with it. It's out on July 20th, so not too far away. Have I played it yet? No! Of course not! But we're getting closer to a hands on, and after a six-minute video of the magic FPS in action last month, tonight's Summer Game Fest threw us a big, bombastic boss fight on top of a steampunk Jaeger, or something. I dunno, it was hard to tell over the light show. Those sure are a lot of magical fireworks going off. I like it. Jangle some more keys in front of me, games man.

The video itself is, uh, well, it's not long, and it's quite choppy. While I enjoy a good setpiece, my concerns remain the same as before, i.e. the magic shooting, despite the different flavours of magic broadly corresponding to a different kind of gun, looks pretty weightless, and the enemies look bullet spongey. I do like the colours and the traversal, though.

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The devs behind endless runners Alto's Adventure and Alto's Odyssey have just unveiled their next game, under new studio Land & Sea. Titled Summerhill, the game is a story-driven puzzle adventure in which you play as a shepherd and their dog. Summerhill was one of the many announcements in the Day Of The Devs showcase of this year's Summer Game Fest. Take a look at the teaser trailer below.

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After yet another wonky adventure into 3D land, Sonic the prickly-pig returns to his native perspective this autumn with Sonic Superstars. It's a side-on platforming adventure with 3D art, and four-player drop-in, drop-out local cooperative multiplayer too. Four! Do you even have that many siblings you need to hand controllers and play Tails so they can pretend they're helping and your mum doesn't tell you off for excluding them?

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Today at the Summer Game Fest Max Payne Sam Lake from Remedy came on stage to talk a bit about the studio's second most famous son Alan Wake (2). After 13 years the sort of Twin Peaksy, sort of Stephen Kingy action adventure game is getting a much-requested sequel this October 17th, although this time it's a survival horror, and Alan is sharing screen time equally with an FBI agent co-protagonist. Lake told us a little bit more about said agent Saga Anderson, leading into a first glimpse of "raw gameplay" (as opposed to cooked?) that showed her in action. I have to say, my first impression is that Saga is a terrible FBI agent who is going to ruin the chain of evidence if this ever goes to court because this woman will not put on gloves to handle a goddamn thing.

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We've been writing about Palworld for a couple of years, but soon we'll be able to play its unusual combination of Pokémon-like creature taming with machinegun combat. There's a new trailer below that reveals it'll launch in early access in January 2024.

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Get ready to bam, biff, and snikt through a new form of ritual combat, as Marvel Snap's new Conquest mode will launch next Tuesday, the 13th of June. That's hot news today fresh from Geoff Keighley's Level Up Pool Party. Conquest is a single-elimination tournament challenging you to climb tiers of the competition to win prizes, including a shot at a prestigious cosmetic at the end of the season.

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Professional villain Jason Isaacs will voice a character of questionable morality in Baldur's Gate 3, developers Larian announced today at Geoff Keighley's Level Up Pool Party. The English actor who played Star Trek: Discovery's Captain Lorca, Marshal Zhukov in The Death Of Stalin, and a whole load of other baddies has now lent his voice to Lord Enver Gortash, the creator of magical clockwork watchmen. Ooh it is a good voice.

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Black Desert Online, that Korean MMORPG you might remember for having a really detailed character creator that everyone lost their minds over a few years ago, debuted a new trailer for its upcoming expansion Land Of The Morning Light at Summer Game Fest tonight. Said expansion, which is out on Wednesday June 14th (hey, that's soon!) is Black Desert's biggest expansion yet, taking players to a new region inspired by Korea's medieval Joseon era. Do I know anything about Black Desert? Hell no. But can I appreciate a boss fight with a many-tailed fox spirit? Hell yes. Always.

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Akira Toriyama is best known for creating Dragon Ball, which I haven't read or watched, and for contributing character designs to Chrono Trigger and the Dragon Quest series, which I haven't played. He's now working with Bandai Namco on an adaptation of Sand Land however, one of his lesser-known mangas, and it's got tanks, mutants, and vast open deserts.

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Futuristic dino-murder 'em up Exoprimal, in which hundreds of raptors fall on you from the sky, isn't out until July 14th. Gosh darn if that won't stop Capcom from crossing it over with Street Fighter 6, though. I mean why not? When you own a bunch of action figures you might as well bang 'em together! The teaser was revealed at Summer Game Fest tonight, which we are covering right now, and though Exoprimal is out kinda soon this collab itself isn't dropping until the vauge 'Fall 2023'.

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What if fairytale puppet Pinocchio had to kill a load of people and robots? You can discover the answer for yourself today in the demo for Lies Of P, launched live during Geoff Keighley's Level Up Pool Party. The demo offers the Soulslike's first two chapters, including letting the little would-be boy cut up bosses.

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So many spines will be destroyed in brutal slow-motion x-ray vision, the first trailer for Mortal Kombat 1 revealed during Geoff Keighley's Level Up Pool Party. "This trailer is literally insane," Keighley warned. Looks like Mortal Kombat to me, though I'm honestly I'm quite curious about this semi-fresh start, especially after heading that Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as the series' moviestar murderman, Johnny Cage. Have a look, though, you know, be warned: literally insane.

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Path Of Exile 2 was announced back in 2019, but we haven't heard anything more about it in years other than that it was still in development. Now there's a new trailer below with a promise of more details to come on July 28th.

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Grimdark FPS Witchfire got a new trailer at tonight's Summer Game Fest Showcase, which highlighted more of the game's story as opposed to more of its shootybang. We also now know it's quick-dashing into early access on September 20th this year, with the Epic Games Store first in line to host its megabytes.

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Last week, Ubisoft teased they were going to unveil a new mystery game at their Ubisoft Forward conference on June 12th. Well, Geoff and his freshly pressed Summer Game Fest trainers have only gone and done it for them, and wouldn't you know it, it's a new Prince Of Persia game called The Lost Crown. Sorry, Sands Of Time Remake, you're old news now.

But even before Geoff got his pristine reveal mitts on it (probably), I went to see and play this new Prince Of Persia game over at Ubisoft Montpellier - and if the reveal trailer hasn't already convinced you this is something special, take it from me: this is rad as heck, and you can read more of my thoughts about it after its full reveal at Ubisoft Forward next Monday. Until then, though, here's everything else I can share about it right now, so ready yourselves for some cold, hard factoids. Here we go.

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After nearly two years in open beta, Pokémon Trading Card Game Live arrives on PC in full today, replacing Pokémon Trading Card Game Online as the primo destination for all digital Poké TCG players. Alas, with Summer Game Fest happening today, none of the RPS Treehouse are going to be able to enact their plans of being the very best like no one ever was until at least early next week at this rate, but if you fancy giving it a go yourself, you'll be pleased to hear it's free-to-play and is available for both Windows and Mac devices (and iOS and Android, if you want the full list of platforms).

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Harmony: The Fall Of Reverie, Don't Nod's latest effort to make your choices really properly matter, is out now, and you can get it along with the dev's other games for a bit cheaper as they celebrate their 15th birthday. The sale is offering discounts of up to 80% on Steam until June 15th (next week). It covers all the games developed or published by Don't Nod, which naturally includes the runaway teen-girl-squad hit Life Is Strange, if you are one of the eight people who haven't played it yet, I guess.

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The Razer Deathadder V3 Pro is an incredible high-end gaming mouse, but it's expensive at $150 new. That's why it's worth noting that used models are now available on Amazon for $79, nearly half-price! For that, you get a lightweight 64g mouse with a right-handed ergonomic design, 3rd-gen optical switches, HyperSpeed wireless and 90 hours of battery life - a pretty convincing spec sheet!

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The Solidigm P44 Pro is a fast, capable PCIe 4.0 drive on par with the WD SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro, but it's often substantially cheaper than either - thanks to aggressive pricing from its manufacturer, flash memory giant SK Hynix. You can now pick up a 1TB P44 Pro for just $65, an excellent deal for a PCIe 4.0 drive of this calibre, complete with TLC NAND and a DRAM cache. To get the deal price, just use code SSCT833 at Newegg.

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AMD's fastest gaming processor for AM4 motherboards, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, has continued to drop in price following the release of newer-generation X3D processors. After initially retailing for £530 on its debut, prices of £300 have become commonplace - and today, we've reached a new milestone with the CPU going for just £275 at Amazon UK.

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I’m not big into Diablo, or Diablo-likes for that matter. I’ve dabbled in Minecraft Dungeons but that’s as close as I’ve flown to Diablo’s hellish sun. I wasn’t really going to bother with Blizzard’s latest click-em-up (seriously, why is there so much mouse clicking??) but I’ve since joined in with the treehouse’s Diablo 4 spree and turns out that maybe there is a reason for me to play Diablo after all. Her name is Lilith.

Lilith is great. She’s a tall demon queen with giant horns, has a major chip on her shoulder, and she’s out to destroy both Heaven and Hell. She seems like the kind of gal who would eat a bunch of babies and puppies as a snack, and I love that for her. It’s great that Blizzard decided to finally bench the titular demon himself and let his terrifying niece have her moment in the spotlight instead.

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If you ever played Counter-Strike even once, you will surely have committed the classic blunder of misclicking in the shop and buying the wrong gun. No shame in it. All you can do is laugh and try your best while armed with, ah, a pair of dual pistols? No more! The latest big update to Counter-Strike 2's invitation-only test has added the option to refund new purchases. A whole new buy menu, even, far nicer than CS:GO's rubbish wheel. Also a new map and a load of other stuff that mostly matters to jammy gits who have access.

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Amazon Prime Day 2023 approaches, bringing with it one giant collective opportunity to snag some quality PC gaming hardware deals. When exactly? Amazon haven’t announced this year’s Prime Day date but my sources tell me it will, as it did last year, land in mid-July. That gives you a few weeks to get prepared, be it through planning your purchases (with some useful best hardware guides) or signing up for a Prime membership.

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In a twist of serendipity, the Terraria board game was shown at the very same UK Games Expo that Nate himself visited! We couldn't have planned it better (and indeed, did not) which means this week on The Electronic Wireless Show podcast we talk about not just that board game, but other PC versions of board games, and vice verse, and the games we think should have tabletop versions.

Plus, this week we have once again been playing current video games, and Nate returns with an extremely silly mini-game. In the hardware section James lets us in on the unlikely second wind for VR headsets, most notably Apple's extremely stupid fake face projection thing. Please, Silicon Valley: stop.

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It's time for the Summer Game Fest liveblog, to which you, lovely readers, are cordially invited. SGF 2023’s main event begins tonight at 8pm BST / 3pm EDT / 12pm PDT, and I’ll be manning the levers to bring live updates on all the game reveals, fresh looks, and trailers that this annual announce-o-rama has to offer.

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Over the past seven days, the Final Fantasy VII Twitter account has been tweeting some cryptic developer comments from members of the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth team. The tweets are all in a Q&A style format, and most of the questions have been fairly innocuous things like "Will FF7 Rebirth have original music?" and "Has the battle system changed from FF7 Remake?" But the answers, at least on the English FF7 Twitter account, have been downright baffling, and have been promptly memed into oblivion. Things will happen to characters during the story, you say? No kidding!

But thanks to some clever internet sleuthing, eager Final Fantasy fans are quickly realising that there's a lot more to these comments than meets the eye. Well, at least there is in the original Japanese versions of them. The English translation team clearly didn't get the same memo...

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This weekend I spent some time trying out a bunch of games that I meant to try earlier, but didn't have the time to. I played through all of Superliminal, for example, and really enjoyed it until the very end when I got an inspirational lecture from an invisible scientist living in my ear - and I did not care for it. One game I played for literally half an hour and thought it was great, but I was not good enough to beat the first boss I came across. But I thought to myself, other people are better at Metroidvanias, and at least one of them might appreciate being nudged in the direction of a year old one I think is cute. Thus: Islets.

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I had one question for Mask Of The Rose: Can I smooch the Cthulhu monster? I mean, I assume you can, they’re one of ten characters you’re able to romantically pursue in the delicious depths of this Eldritch dating sim. But in actuality, I simply don't know, because after ten-plus hours and multiple playthroughs, that all-important question remains unanswered. It’s not something unique to my dashing, tentacled suitor, either. Many of my romantic pursuits in the Neath totally fizzled out. It's giving Berocca when I wanted Coke and Mentos.

Mask Of The Rose is Failbetter’s visual novel dating sim set in the Fallen London universe, an already established alt-history Victorian London that the studio has been building over a decade as a quite excellent browser game. In this alternative history, London has been dragged through the Earth’s crust by bats and now resides in a vast underground cavern called the Neath. With the economy literally in the pits and Queen Vicky refusing to leave her cushy palace, London has become somewhat unruly, turning into a lasciviously gothic underworld home to a whole parade of monsters, devils, living statues, cloaked beings with red eyes... basically the entire cast of the Goosebumps books.

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We rarely cover power supplies when it comes to RPS deals, and when we do they're almost always massive 800 to 1000W units that are suitable for top-end systems - but not exactly what the average PC gamer needs in their rig. Today we're righting that (minor) wrong, as we feature a 550W power supply slapped with a healthy $45 Amazon discount - bringing it down to $60.

The PSU in question is the Cooler Master V550 Gold V2, an 80+ Gold rated unit with a semi-modular design that comes in a fetching white colourway. It's well-rated by reviewers and suitable for mid-range systems, and thanks to this limited time deal it's way cheaper than anything else similar on the market!

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Last time, you decided that an enemy which can't see you but can sense you is better than one which only moves when you're not looking. I concede that the former opens so many possibilities in games but god, I hate the latter in a way I enjoy so much. Perfect terrible beings. But, science has decided and we must move on. This week, I ask you to pick between two forms of movement. What's better: glowing wings, or slipstreaming?

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The Guerrilla Collective online showcase has blessed us with some fun announcements and reveals tonight, one being that August 4th will bring us the release of Super Space Club, a self-described "lo-fi arcade space shooter". Coming from Jamaican solo dev GrahamOfLegend, Super Space Club does indeed look to be delivering a retro space bullet hell kind of deal that reminds me of the summer holiday I spent playing Geometry Wars with my pals, but with a really cool chill soundtrack bringing the heartrate down a little. More importantly, the cold vastness of space is in this case a number of bright colours that make me think of the universe as a big Slush Puppie that I just want to shlorp up.

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After three-and-a-bit years in early access, the striking Junji Ito-inspired spook 'em up World Of Horror is committing to a release date for the full game: the 19th of October. This is technically a delay from the previously planned summer launch, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal to launch a horror game in summer anyway. This is also when it will launch on consoles.

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You know what works for me? To do lists. ThroughLine Games should give that a go, because here they are announcing a new game in the same world as 2019's platforming adventure Forgotton Anne. It's a parallel universe where forgotten items, known as forgotlings come to life and endeavour to be remembered again. This new game, due out in 2024, is actually called Forgotlings, and you play as one called Fig in a similarly actiony platformy adventure in a 2D "semi open-world Metroidvania". Fig is, by the way, an artist's wooden posing doll, and even though he has a head his face is in his torso. I find this greatly distressing and will not stand for it.

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The E3 / NotE3 / Summer Game Fest news bonanza is upon us, and we'll be highlighting all the biggest and best announcements that catch our eye right here over the course of the coming week. We'll be keeping this liveblog up to date over the next few days with all the latest news, trailers, and links to our coverage from Summer Game Fest and the wider notE3 season, including the Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct, the PC Gaming Show, Wholesome Direct, Day Of The Devs and lots more. So make sure you check back regularly for everything Geoff Fest.

TODAY'S SCHEDULE (Sunday June 11th):

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The development of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has already been a bumpy ride. Publisher Paradox stated they were "happy with progress" on the game in 2021 following a switch in developers (whoever they may be) and delay after delay, but a new announcement from Paradox today has some a little worried.

"We want to provide the best value to those of you who supported us via digital pre-order," the publisher said in a statement posted to its official blog. "We are thus offering refunds to anyone who has pre-ordered any edition of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2."

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