Rock, Paper, Shotgun

After quite a while using the Fnatic Streak65, a 60% keyboard with Cherry brown switches, I have moved on from fruit (technically drupe, according to Google) and into a vegetable era. My Streak's brown switches became a bit loud and quite rattly, which, as someone with hearing declared by an audiologist to be so sensitive that I give myself tinnitus, started to get to me.

So I type this to you now as someone who's graduated to Kailh low profile switches, which is proving as nutritious for my finger pads as I'd imagine its leafy homophone would be. Here's hoping that there's more low profile mechanical keebs out there in a few years, as the options seem very limited at the mo.

Read more

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 was featured in this evening's Xbox Developer Direct. Ninja Theory gave a further glimpse of the things they show when talking about Hellblade: motion capture, graphical fidelity, mental health representation, and stabbing. They also provided a release date: May 21st, 2024.

Read more

Tonight's Xbox Developer Direct brought an update on Avowed, Obsidian's first-person fantasy RPG. A new trailer provided a substantial look at combat, including pistols, dual-wielding swords and wands, as well as a slightly updated release window: this autumn.

Read more

The leaks were right. Machine Games' next Nazi-biffer is called Indiana Jones And The Great Circle. It was shown for the first time during this evening's Xbox Developer Direct, where we got to see first-person punching and whipping, some tomb raiding, and plenty of Indy's face in cutscenes.

We also got a release window: 2024.

Read more

Today's Xbox Developer Direct stream offered updates on some of 2024's biggest Microsoft games, including MachineGames' Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, Obsidian's Avowed and Ninja Theory's Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2. If you missed the stream and want a quick roundup of all the news, games, release dates and trailers featured, we've gathered it all together in this post.

Read more

I think we're well into "milking the gimmick" territory for bodycam horror games now - last week's Digested may have been one giant snake too many - but Zoochosis does have the additional virtue of being heavily inspired by the cute doggy scene from The Thing. And also, perhaps, Five Nights At Freddy's.

In this latest, gruesome escapade from Sparky Marky developers Clapperheads, you are a zookeeper working the night shift. Your job, initially, is to feed the incarcerated animals and clean up after them while giving them an occasional pat on the nose. But Something Is Wrong. Giraffes aren't supposed to have that many legs, or mandibles. Kangaroos aren't supposed to stick to the ceiling, or have several sets of teeth.

Read more

Games Done Quick is busy raising loads of money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, so we have a little chat about speedrunning, speedrunners, the benefits of breaking the game vs. the quality of a purist speedrun, and also a dog. We don't have a Nate this week, but James has been playing Apelegs again and offers a surprising self-assessment of how he feels like he's past his Apex Legends prime, and how confidence is a really necessary skill in competitive shooters. Worth tuning in for a listen to that.

Read more

It’s been two whole graphics card generations since Nvidia last tried the whole Super-branded refresh thing, and from what I recall of that sweaty 2019 summer, most of the updated RTX 20 series cards were meek rejigs of GPUs that didn’t really need replacing in the first place. Having tried the new RTX 4070 Super, though, it looks like Nvidia aren’t just redeeming the Super badge – they might just right the wrongs of the RTX 40 family as a whole.

Read more

Four months after the troubled launch of Payday 3, developers Starbreeze have announced they've formed a "strike team of veteran developers" with the goal of bringing it "up to where it will meet your expectations". The cooperative heist FPS got off to a right bumpy start when the ever-unpopular decision to only be playable if you're online collided with server issues that saw Starbreeze take the game down for a while. Since then, it has failed to rise above 'Mixed' review rating on Steam, not helped by Starbreeze releasing a £15 DLC pack when many players were unhappy with the game they'd just bought for £35.

Read more

Today's the day of Xbox Developer Direct 2024, a select showcase of forthcoming Microsoft-published games, from sorcerous RPGs to intricate strategy games, which begins at 12pm PT, 3pm ET and 8pm UK. Wait, stop! Come back here, you silly goose. You don't need to go anywhere. I've embedded the livestream below, together with the key things you need to know about the games in question.

Read more

Your favourite beaver-based colony sim Timberborn's latest big update has arrived, and honestly, I'd say your poor beavers won't appreciate it one bit. The main reason being, it adds a new ecological hazard called Badwater, that doesn't only make your water bad, but your crops and beavers at risk of being bad. Still, there are plenty of new buildings to help you harness the power of the stanky water and errr, exercise halls for beavers to get their sweat on. I wouldn't recommend they rehydrate with the bad water, though.

Read more

As we all know, I like vampire stories, and I like different takes on vampire stories. Yesterday Edwin dangled an upcoming visual novel called Vampire Therapist in front of my nose. I am intrigued, also because I appreciate a Ronseal approach to titles. In Vampire Therapist, out on Steam this June 17th, you play Sam, a vampire who becomes a therapist to other vampires. So the title works twice!

Read more

Readers may remember how much I liked Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, principally because of how funny it was. It was an intelligent and somewhat loving take on a Zelda-y RPG - a small town hero gets a sword and goes on a rampage fighting some bosses - except the main character is a turnip. And also he tears up any paperwork handed to him. Turnip Boy Robs A Bank follows directly on from his Tax Evasion, and it's not quite as funny or as focused, but it's also an entirely different genre of game, and I have a huge amount respect for that.

Read more

Wake up, mayflies! FatShark have detailed the closed alpha for Warhammer: Vermintide 2's long-awaited Versus mode, in which the doughty Ubersreik Five go up against four player-controlled Skaven Pactsworn (translation: ratty supervillains) in addition to the rank-and-file AI-controlled rodent hordes. The alpha will launch in the "near future", and sounds like just the dollop of rancid PvP shenanigans this lapsed Elven ranger needs to re-install one of the all-time great Warhammer adaptations, which unaccountably isn't on our list of the best co-op games or the best multiplayer games on PC. You got something against horrible giant rats, Ed Thorn?

Read more

Puzzle game classic Threes is getting a Steam PC launch to celebrate its 10th anniversary, developer Asher Vollmer has announced. The release date is 6th February, and here's the Steam page. The new version adds controller and Steam cloud support together with achievements and leaderboards. Given its mobile origins, it should scrub up nicely on Steam Deck.

Read more

The Cooler Master NR200 is a brilliant small form factor PC case - and now it's heavily discounted at Amazon UK. This is a Mini ITX case which allows 360-degree access to the components therein, with space for a 240mm AiO or 155mm high air cooler, triple-slot graphics cards up to 330mm in length and seven fans in total. It's often as high as £94, but for a little while now it's been available for £70 - a great price that makes it well worth recommending to you, dear RPS reader.

Read more

Intel's Core i3 12100F is a surprisingly viable gaming CPU, with four Golden Cove P-cores and eight threads with DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support, all for under £100. Don't be put off by 'Core i3' either - this model is similar in speed to the last-gen Core i5 11600K and not too far behind the Core i7 10700K, such is the leap forward Intel made with its 12th-gen CPU architecture. Today this processor is even cheaper than normal too, with prices dropping to £88 at Ebuyer in the UK.

Read more

The meme that willed itself into existence, Cult of the Lamb’s ‘sex update’, is upon us. The roguelite cultist sim’s Sins of the Flesh update is live now, bringing a whole bunch of new items, systems and other additions, as well as its promised woo-hooing.

Read more

Destructive game-show shooter The Finals has received its biggest update yet. Patch 1.5 arrives with a litany of bug fixes, balance changes and more, along with the introduction of a brand new mode - the game’s first time-limited variant, as well as its first mode for solo players.

Read more

A massive update for Starfield, cramming in over 100 fixes and other improvements, has been delayed. Originally due to hit Steam’s beta branch today, January 17th, the patch is now expected to arrive later this week - but Bethesda aren’t sure exactly when, just yet.

Read more

Larian CEO Swen Vincke has been reading Ubisoft director of subscriptions Philippe Tremblay's thoughts from yesterday about how players need to "get comfortable" with renting their games as a package, rather than "having and owning" an individual copy. His broad takeaway is: that ain't it, chief. In a social media thread today, Vincke wrote that "it's going to be a lot harder to get good content if subscription becomes the dominant model and a select group gets to decide what goes to market and what not". He feels that "direct from developer to players is the way". As such you shouldn't expect Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity: Original Sin 2 or any other Larian RPGs to join the Game Pass bandwagon anytime soon.

Read more

A new farming game is planting the seeds of recent PC hits like Stardew Valley, Human: Fall Flat, Satisfactory and, yes, Minecraft and hoping to have them grow into an entertaining co-op offering that’s as cozy as it is chaotic.

Read more

Last time, you decided that Planescape: Torment's Litany Of Curses is better than Half-Life's Snarks. I hadn't that expected that snark-off to be so one-sided but Morte's cussing taunt took 80% of the votes. You have to forgive Snarks for snapping at your finger one day, Gordon, they're just little critters. Onwards! This week, I ask you to choose between nostalgia and new styles, ya? What's better: playing on an old patch, or asymmetrical outfits?

Read more

When cute crafting RPG Bandle Tale: A League Of Legends Story was first announced at the end of last year, I don't think I really appreciated the fact it was going to be the next game from the devs behind mortuary farming-me-do Graveyard Keeper. I keep turning this fact over in my head as I watch Lazy Bear Games' associate producer Vlada Redko play a portion of Bandle Tale over Discord for me, with creative director Nikita Kulaga and Riot Forge's creative director Rowan Parker telling me about what's happening onscreen in front of me. As Redko explores the whimsical, knitting-themed city of Bandle as one of League Of Legends' tiny fluffy Yordle creatures, it is, to put it lightly, quite the tonal shift from their previous work. But don't let its cute looks fool you.

This is a crafting RPG with a ferociously long set of skill trees to master, with 40-60 hours' worth of new abilities to learn, objects to construct, errands to run, friends to enlist and - crucially - parties to throw. For in the Bandle woods of Runeterra, life's problems are solved by having a good old fashioned boogie, including the rather urgent issue of fixing the world's portal network, which has collapsed in a mysterious accident. It may have a softer, fluffier-looking surface than Graveyard Keeper, but underneath it looks as though there's just as much to dig into here, so here's what I've learned so far ahead of its release on February 21st.

Take the little boy with lancing white eyes from Playdead's Limbo, ruthlessly clone him a few dozen times (an extremely Playdead thing to do) and herd all the clones into a world redolent of Klei's Don't Starve, and you have something like The Tribe Must Survive. Developed by apparent Macbeth fans Walking Tree Games GmbH, and published by Starbreeze, it's a heavily horror-themed tribe management sim with a roguelike campaign loop, set in what the developers are calling the "Lovecraftian Stone Age", with flagrant disregard for my nerves. Does the Lovecraftian Stone Age feature any actual walking trees? We'll find out on February 22nd, when the game launches into early access.

Read more

I enjoy Games Done Quick, an organisation that raises money for charity (this year is the Prevent Cancer Foundation) by playing games at peak efficiency. If you've never watched it before, I recommend loading up the Twitch stream at about 1am and sort of gently dissociating while someone plays an 80s NES game you've never heard of. Speaking of, one of the headline acts for this year's stream - which is running through to this Sunday 21st - was Peanut Butter, a shiba inu trained to press buttons on command, "playing" a NES game that came out in 1985. Although Peanut Butter obeyed his training, some technical issues colluded to snatch a world best time from him - but he raised many thousands of dollars, so good for him.

Peanut Butter is the latest high tide line in the efforts to put more weird and difficult hurdles between you and the controls of games when speedrunning or streaming them. And I must ask: where next? A cat? A snapping turtle biting pressure sensors? A Grey parrot to play a game without any input from you at all? Where will this madness end!?

Read more

What's the most 90s way you can market your retro-styled prequel to a 90s mech shooter? Other than an Acclaim-style stunt where you offer people £500 to tattoo their baby's face with the game logo, I'd say perhaps releasing a Quake mod. So here's Episode Enyo, a prequel to upcoming "biopunk" hack 'n' slasher Slave Zero X, now available as a Bethesda-approved free add-on inside Quake.

Read more

Hey! How would you like to contribute to the downfall of society? I do so by regularly tuning into Love Island and/or Married At First Sight. For those of you who'd like to do your part in videogame form, dev_hell looks to be the answer. It's a first-person deckbuilding roguelike where you play as a software developer employed by a shady corporation to "reshape the future", and it's giving off strong whiffs of Inscryption. As much as I know dev_hell will be incredibly unsettling… I'm in.

Read more

A round of videogame company layoffs following a period of "unsustainable" spending? It must be a Wednesday. Swedish conglomerate Thunderful Group AB - whose corporate possessions include Somerville developer Jumpship and several teams working on the SteamWorld games - have announced that they will lay off around 20 percent of their staff as part of a restructuring program that "stems primarily from over-investments made in the last few years".

Read more

What the hell is going on in Diablo 4 these days? "Devilish machinations", would you believe. Blizzard have formally unveiled the brooding action-RPG's Season 3, aka Season of the Construct, which launches at 6pm GMT and 10am PST on January 23rd, and features a new quest line in which you investigate an ancient technology, the Loom, created by the mage Zoltun Kulle, which has now been purloined by the demon Malphas.

Along the way, you'll both fight deadly arcane constructs (fantasy robots), and enlist one called Ayuzhan as your Seneschal Companion. These machinations aren't just devilish, in other words. They are literal machinations, with all manner of automated foe awaiting beneath the deserts of Kehjistan.

Read more

As the release of the (deep breath) Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft approaches (yes, that is its full and official Steam title) on February 14th, developers Aspyr have detailed some of the game's new features over on the PlayStation Blog, and how they've approached bringing the art, controls and effects up to date for 2023. Personally, I'm extremely pleased to see they've added a photo mode, for example, as I spent inordinate amounts of time making Lara do creepy side-eye smiles during inappropriate Shadow Of The Tomb Raider scenes. But I'm also heartened to see they've kept in the original tank controls as an optional extra, alongside a more modern control scheme to make them more approachable.

Read more

Dave The Diver was one of last year's surprise hits, but though some called it an indie game, it was actually the work of Mintrocket, a subsidiary of Korean publisher Nexon. Now Mintrocket have announced their next game and it seems less likely to cause such confusion. It's called Wakerunners, and it's a team-based "battle action game" about heroes smashing at each other.

It'll have a demo in Steam Next Fest next month and there's a teaser trailer below.

Read more

Prison Architect 2 was announced earlier this evening and will switch the carceral management sim to 3D when it releases on March 26th.

It'll also have robust mod support, with "a mod editor built-in for PC players", according to game director Gaz Wright.

Read more

Top Spin is returning. The 2K Sports tennis series last received an entry back in 2011, which didn't come to PC, but while there's no confirmed platforms for Top Spin 2K25, I choose to live in hope. You'll find a teaser trailer below.

Read more

Against The Storm left early access late last year, but has just now received its first major post-release patch. Update 1.1 "isn’t as spectacular" as its developers had first hoped, but it does buff the roguelite citybuilder with som new art, UI improvements and quality-of-life tweaks, as well as new orders to make early stage settlement building "a little more interesting."

Read more

Arctic does a really nice line of CPU coolers, including this 240mm AiO that's discounted by 23% on Amazon US today. That brings it down to $75, a great price for the renowned Liquid Freezer II 240, one of the best-performing all-in-one liquid coolers on the market and a fine complement to any high-end or mid-range gaming CPU. To get this deal, just tick the 23% off coupon on the product page.

Read more

Asus' Zephyrus G14 is one of the nicest gaming laptop designs I've ever tested, and now this high-end RTX 4070 and Ryzen 9 7940HS equipped model is $450 off at Best Buy in the US. This spec also includes 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD, making for a powerful machine that is still portable thanks to its 14-inch frame with a 2560x1600 165Hz IPS display.

Read more

AMD's flagship RDNA 2 graphics card, the RX 6900 XT, continues to drop in price over in the US. Right now you can pick this once-fastest-ever Radeon GPU for just $500 when you buy an open box model from Newegg. That's outstanding, given that this card cost twice as much when it debuted in 2020.

This is the fancy AsRock Phantom Gaming D model too, which brings a snazzy design and a faster 2340MHz boost clock (versus 2250MHz on the vanilla spec).

Read more

Good news, everyone! One of the best PC gaming handhelds, the Asus ROG Ally, is done to just £599 at Currys in the UK for the higher-powered Z1 Extreme edition. This represents a £100 discount over its launch price and is a good value for a premium handheld that outperforms the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED while having a higher-res and higher refresh rate 1080p 120Hz display.

Read more

Back in December, Creative Assembly posted a lengthy apology to players for their recent handling of the Total War strategy series, in particular Total War: Warhammer 3 and Total War: Pharoah. Seeking to smooth down feathers ruffled by overpricing and buggy launches, to pick out two of the biggest fan complaints, the developers offered to - amongst other things - make Pharoah’s first paid DLC pack a free update.

That free update is now upon us, miladies and milords. Available January 25th, it's called High Tides, and introduces two new playable factions with their own units and gods and some additional campaign mechanics. Here’s a trailer.

Read more