Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Frogwares are in a bit of a tight spot at the moment, being as they are a Ukranian studio. If I was trying to make video games in a warzone and: a) my last game was a big sexy prequel to my long running Sherlock Holmes series; b) the one before that was a Lovecraftian detective game with pretty recent assets; and c) my back catalogue contained a Lovecraft-themed Sherlock Holmes mystery, then I'd probably do what they've done with Sherlock Holmes The Awakened. Which is to remake the old Lovecraft-themed Sherlock Holmes game, but with new assets.

It's also got new puzzles and areas, and a slightly rewritten story to account for this being a sequel to Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One. It's a smaller, less ambitious game than Chapter One with some jank knocking around, and I wouldn't recommend it if you're not a fan of the series, but you know what? I think there's a glimmer of greatness in the very fact of its constraints.

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Developer Dambuster Studios have shared the system requirements for their zombie masher Dead Island 2 ahead of its release on April 21st. Most of the game’s requirements seem pretty standard for a modern open-world game, although you’ll need some pretty powerful CPUs and GPUs to run the sequel at recommended settings and above. Ripping into hordes in graphic details might cost you.

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‘The Tank’, I’ll admit, is a monumentally uninspired name for the mace-wielding brick privy of a man I’d bestowed the dubious honour of soaking up hits in place of my squishier mercs, but when sandbox tactical RPG Wartales let me assemble a party of 12 mad lasses and tapped chaps, the stash of good nicknames was always going to be the first casualty. So, The Tank he lived, and also died. Questing endlessly in this grimy medieval world won’t cut it. You’ll also need to keep your troupe paid and fed, so when evening fell to find nought but a handful of foraged mushrooms and a single mouldy apple I’d pried from the fingertips of a disemboweled bandit, it was time to get creative.

“Waste not, want not”, said the Earl of Human Sandwich, the inventor of cannibalism (I’m told). With this in mind, I’d invested one of my early ‘Knowledge Points’ into a tech that let me repurpose my dearly departed as delicious drumsticks. Slain friendlies don’t disappear after battle. Instead, you’ll find their tastefully dressed corpses in the loot menu afterwards. Ghoulishly, the ‘loot all’ option doesn’t add their cadavers to your inventory with the rest. You’ll have to manually drag them over, giving you just enough time to consciously make the decision to either bury or eat them. I did not bury him.

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Update: Our RTX 4070 review is now live! Also it's on sale now but that's less important.

Nvidia have announced the GeForce RTX 4070, a 1440p warrior joining the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080 in a collection of largely 4K-minded RTX 40 series GPUs.

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The Trine series is returning for a fifth instalment, developers Frozenbyte have announced today, and it's arriving on PC sooner than you might think. Launching later this summer, Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy sees the return of the co-op puzzle game's three famous heroes - Pontius the knight, Amadeus the wizard and Zoya the thief - as they tackle a mechanical clockwork army headed up by two dastardly villains trying to ruin the trio's good name. Come and watch the reveal trailer below.

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Roguelike puzzler Desktop Dungeons was first released a decade ago, and the remastered Desktop Dungeons: Rewind launches next week on April 18th. Developer QCF Design evidently have a lot to celebrate and they’re doing so in style. Owners of the original game will be able to grab the remaster for free when it comes out. At no extra cost.

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After 15 years, I finally managed to go back to Japan! And now I'm back, I thought it would be nice to recount the trip. It's a somewhat selfish thing, admittedly. Mainly because I think jotting down my scattered thoughts will help me process the holiday and, hopefully as a by-product of my outpouring, you'll get a sense of what it's like out there if you're interested in going yourself one day.

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In an attempt to beat MS Flight Sim's world tour of countries, Game Pass is now expanding to more places. Microsoft has launched PC Game Pass in 40 new countries, after releasing a preview version earlier this year. Those of you who participated in the preview will be treated to two free months of PC Game Pass, “no further action needed.”

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Cheap laptops are great. They can run Minecraft servers, download stuff while you're away, let you practice programming, let your younger sibling play with or against you in retro or indie games. You might already have one lying around, in which case have a think about the possibilities - but if you'd like one and don't have one in a cupboard somewhere, you can grab a cheap Dell Latitude 7390 off Ebay for £219.99 in 'good' and 'refurbished' condition. For the money, you get an 8th-gen Core i5 processor with integrated graphics, a compact 13-inch design, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. All in all, it's a pretty sweet spec for the asking price!

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The Samsung 990 Pro is a blazing-fast PCIe 4.0 SSD, offering incredible speeds of up to 7450MB/s reads and 6900MB/s writes - right up against the limits of the PCIe 4.0 standard.

Normally this drive retails for about £200 in its massive 2TB incarnation, but now you can pick up this drive for just £152.99 at Ebuyer in the UK - a great deal on a drive that we've named as the very fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD for shorter loading times.

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Right from the start, modders tried to make Valve's virtual reality shooter Half-Life: Alyx work without needing VR glasses. Now another such mod has reached the point of Alyx being fully playable from start to finish on a regular monitor with keyboard and mouse. This new mod looks more polished than some others, and claims it's the "easiest to use and most flexible" of the lot. I'm not too interested in a VRless Alyx but I'm sure it's welcome news to some.

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Retro FPS Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun now has a release date of May 23rd, developer Auroch Digital have announced. Revealed last year, Boltgun is an homage to old-school shooters like classic Doom, mimicking those game’s speedy shooting and bloody visuals, and placing it in the Warhammer universe. Its loud, fast, and fun trailers meant Boltgun ripped its way onto RPS’ most anticipated games list, so thank the grim-dark gods for a release date.

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Bithell Games and Disney are releasing Tron: Identity later today, a visual novel spin on the neon-coloured virtual world. Set on a new Grid - the digitised worlds in Tron - you’ll be investigating a mystery, making tough decisions, and solving puzzles, but today’s release is only the beginning. According to Disney, Bithell Games will continue to develop future games in the Tron series.

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There are few success stories more inspiring than that of Tarn and Zach Adams. After twenty years of development Dwarf Fortress finally made the jump to Steam in December 2021, complete with exciting new features such as "graphics" and "mouse support". Although the game was already critically lauded, its availability on Steam made it a financial success, with thousands of long-term fans thrilled to provide the brothers with a long-overdue payday.

Following their panel on the highs and lows of procedural generation, the pair had a chat with Rachel about the game's recent Steam release, upcoming features, their favourite player stories and - most importantly - Zach's dog.

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As every good munchkin knows, premium supporters of RPS get free game key giveaways, and this week we're excited to have a blast of first-come, first-served freebies dark fantasy citybuilder Against The Storm. On a somewhat desperate mission to reclaim the wilderness for a kind of demanding queen, Against The Storm charges you with not only building a prosperous settlement, but linking it with multiple others in a vast network of prosperity and civilisation. Read on to find out how and when to get your free key.

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We have the dingy corridors of Dead Space (2008), we also have the pretty corridors of Dead Space remake (2023), and now, we can enter the Ishimura a third time with Dead Space Demake (2023, but it looks like 1996.) The fan-made Dead Space Demake takes the horror classic’s oppressive environment and brutal aliens, and recreates them in a PS1-style polygonal aesthetic. It’s out now on itch.io and it’s totally free.

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Big big sequel Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is due to release later this month (April 28th), and EA have shared the “final gameplay trailer” in anticipation. The new look debuted at this weekend’s Star Wars Celebration - both well-timed fate and a clever bit of corporate brand synergy. The 2-minute trailer is packed with action shots while returning favourite Cere gives a very sombre speech about the dark times the galaxy is facing. Although, when is the Star Wars universe not in dark times? When are the odds ever in your favour? And what happened to "never tell me the odds?"

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Our commitment to finding cool people and giving them a leg up continues, and this time I'm thrilled to welcome the lovely and talented Zijin Wang as our work experience bestie for the next few weeks. You'll already have seen a few news articles from Zijin popping up, after her first few days with us, and you'll see more over the next while. Everyone give a big, warm, RPS welcome!

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Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday (well, Tuesday now, because we were off yesterday), I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, we admire vast landscapes, a horrible glob of dog, weird offices, giant monsters, and so many more interesting and attractive indies. Check 'em out!

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Over the weekend, footage leaked online showing what appeared to be a shiny remake of Atlus’ Persona 3 and the next entry in Jet Set Radio, apparently making Sega the latest company to pursue the remake/reboot gold. Late last year, the publisher emphasised plans to “focus on remaking and remastering existing IPs,” although they haven’t confirmed the existence of either project yet.

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Sundays are for staring wistfully out of a window and wondering when your friend Ed will return from his adventures. Before you let out a long sigh, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).

In his weekly newsletter for the Guardian, Keith Stewart laments the recent cancellation of this year's in-person E3, highlighting the loss of access an event like E3 offers to journalists that can't be replicated by a glut of sterile, online showcases.

Following the passing of legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto last week, Mat Ombler has documented his effect on the world of video games. Featuring quotes from Jesper Kyd, Takeshi Furukawa and Yuji Naka, it's clear that Sakamoto's influence on the way games sound cannot be understated.

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The developers of Ark have revised their plans for the release of Ark: Survival Ascended, an Unreal Engine 5 enhanced edition of their dinosaur survival sim. It will now cost $60 rather than the previously planned $50, is no longer bundled together with ARK 2, and will instead include the remasters of Ark: Survival Evolved's several expansions - although most won't be available at launch.

Studio Wildcard also went into more detail as to why this upgraded version is no longer a free update, and why they feel it's necessary to shut down Ark: Survival Evolved's official servers.

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Cook Serve Forever looks a lot like Vertigo Gaming's previous Cook, Serve, Delicious! series, but it puts a new spin on urgent meal prep and has a whole new story and world. It also now has an early access release date, May 8th, and a development roadmap outlining the journey to 1.0.

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For the past several years, American McGee has been crowdfunding efforts to produce a third entry in his series of action-horror games inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Those efforts produced a 414 page design bible for "Alice: Asylum", which McGee used to pitch the project to rights-holders Electronic Arts.

McGee says that Electronic Arts have decided to pass on the project. As such, McGee says he has "reached an endpoint with 'Alice' and with game production in general."

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The Last Of Us Part 1 launched on PC a little over a week ago in a less than adequate state. It has been heavily criticised for bugs, crashes and performance issues in the days since, despite several patches.

Now there's another new patch, 1.0.2.0, which Naughty Dog say "addresses some crashes, improves performance in some areas, and fixes several gameplay and UI issues including some animation, texture, and lighting bugs."

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512GB Micro SD cards have continued to come down in price, and today we've spotted a great deal on a 512GB option from Integral that offers read speeds up to 180MB/s. It's available for £39.99, down from £48, which is the best price we've seen for this spec.

That makes this Micro SD a premiere option for Steam Deck owners, who will benefit from faster copying times when transferring game directories from the internal storage to Micro SD or downloading from the internet, and game load times should also be as speedy as anything with this A2-rated drive.

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The best thing about DDR4 RAM is that you really don't need to spend much at all to get a good-speed kit at almost any capacity. Normally we've covered 32GB and 64GB kits in the past, but today it's time to look at the mainstream, entry-level option: a 16GB dual-channel kit, comprising of two matching 8GB sticks. Normally we'd expect to pay around £50 for these, but now it's possible to pick up one for just £35 thanks to the Ebay code APRIL10.

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Last August, THQ Nordic and Slipgate Ironworks - the devs behind Ghostrunner and Graven - announced their new retro-inspired real-time strategy game Tempest Rising. It’s an alternate history story about three factions who duke it out over a rare mineral, the titular Tempest, and we had previously seen two of them in a campaign walkthrough. The third faction is only available in the game’s multiplayer modes, which the team have released footage of today. Catch the 20-minute 1v1 match below:

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You might not know what Muv-Luv is. I hadn’t even heard of it till a few years ago. Which is strange, since Muv-Luv is considered by many to be one of the most greatest visual novels of all time. What begins as a light-hearted slice-of-life high school romantic comedy eventually pulls the rug out from under the player, and transforms into a war epic featuring mechs and aliens with a much darker tone. In Muv-Luv’s original Japanese release, this twist was hidden and only briefly hinted at in the marketing.

Today both Muv-Luv games are easily available on Steam, marketed specifically with this twist, and where they sit fully-translated and with Overwhelmingly Positive reviews. iOS and Android ports are apparently in development, and other Muv-Luv spin-offs continue to get translated. But the first time anyone experienced a complete English language version of Muv-Luv was in July 2010, when a fan translation group called Amaterasu released a patch localising the first game.

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There are so many ways to cut this cake. I could call it a weird game, and bang on about those for a bit. I could call it a 2D beat 'em up with your classic heavy/light attacks (actually punch/kick, but whatever), which is important to mention. It's also tempting to namedrop the things it reminded me of, like Hotline Miami, Beraltors, and a tiny hint of The Cat Lady, but that could get you picturing just about anything, and is unfairly reductive to a game that has the right to stand on its own.

Pill Baby is, obviously, all those things. It's far better and more coherent than any of those descriptions would make it sound.

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Sons Of The Forest continues its early access journey, but what was once a peaceful woodland stroll is turning into a totally rad zooming session, all thanks to the game’s third patch adding in a new vehicle, tweaks to, er, dead bodies, and much more.

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Capcom have added the Mercenaries mode to Resident Evil 4's remake as a free bit of DLC, alongside some curious microtransactions to the base game. Just like the original Resi4, Mercenaries puts you up against a timer as you race to roundhouse kick foes and chase high scores.

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Have you ever been waiting for a delivery, only to have it never arrive? Ever wondered where it went? How does the courier even begin to track a lost item? Mr. Sun’s Hatbox answers all of those questions (very seriously) in a genre-blending comedy. When I say genre-blending, I mean this is a platforming roguelike with extensive base-building, shooting, whacking, stealthing, and a heavy dose of Metal Gear Solid 5. Seriously. It launches on April 20th.

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The long-running sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica received a turn-based strategy spin-off a couple years ago. Focusing on the epic space battles alone, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock was generally well-reviewed at its launch in 2017, and it’s become increasingly popular in the years since, thanks to hefty post-launch support and a lack of other BSG-related things going on. Luckily, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock is now free to keep on Steam until 6pm BST/ 10am PT/ 1pm ET on April 9th.

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The Walking Dead: Saints And Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution

*inhales*

starts by suggesting that you play the original game's tutorial. This is included as part of the experience, which, as we'll get to, says a lot about how this sequel has been designed.

In any case, I disregarded this advice. "I don't need an instruction manual for post-apocalyptic survival," I thought. I've rummaged through this particular abandoned house countless times, after all: In DayZ, in Dead Island, in State Of Decay, in Days Gone. I even reviewed the first Saints And Sinners back in February 2020. I know my way around a zombie's cranium better than anyone.

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The RPS team is growing! We're looking for a News Editor to take our news coverage to the next level, and you can apply right here today to join the team.

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We have a long weekend coming up for Easter, so we'll mostly be off Friday and Monday then return on Tuesday with chocolate and fondant still oozing from the corners of our mouths. So tell me, reader dear, what are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!

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Dying Light 2 came out last year, but the polished zombie-parkour sequel didn't make its predecessor obsolete. If what you're after is a more freeform, organic open world in which to survive, then the first Dying Light is arguably the better choice. Good news: its currently free-to-keep from the Epic Games Store alongside its excellent expansion.

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I'm old enough to remember Battlezone (1998) and Command & Conquer: Renegage and the years since are littered with umpteen games that try to combine RTS commanding with FPS conquering. The latest to try is Silica, from Arma 3 developers Bohemia Interactive. You'll find the announcement trailer and its many crabs below.

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Stranger Of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, the strange, chaos-obsessed hack-and-slash Final Fantasy prequel, is now available on Steam. Developed by Nioh and Wo Long creators Team Ninja in partnership with Square Enix, it has been exclusive to Epic's games store, the Epic Games Store, since March last year. It's also now cheaper than it used to be.

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