Latest Articles
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Everything announced at the Annapurna Interactive Showcase 2023
New Blade Runner, new Keita Takahashi, a new bike game from the Nidhogg devs and more
Tonight's Annapurna Interactive Showcase brought us 30 minutes of fresh game announcements, putting a lovely (and hopefully final) full stop on this year's notE3 / Summer Game Fest period. While most of the announcements were updates on games we already knew about, there are a couple of cool new things in there that I'm personally quite pumped for, including a new Blade Runner game being developed internally at Annapurna Interactive, a new Keita Takahashi joint about a kid stuck in a T-pose of all things, and a new ghostly biking game from the team behind Nidhogg. I'd highly recommend watching the showcase in full if you can, but in case you need a quick refresher of what happened, or are just short on time, we've rounded up every announcement in order below.
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Don't worry, cute co-op adventure Flock is "totally playable as a single-player game"
"The trailer has done almost too good a job of selling this as a multiplayer game," devs tell us
During tonight's Annapurna Interactive Showcase, we got another lovely look at Flock, the latest game from Wilmot's Warehouse and I Am Dead devs Hollow Ponds and Richard Hogg. In it, we get to see exactly how its adorable creature herding works in co-op, which you'd probably hope to see, given its own Steam page also describes it as a co-op multiplayer game. But rest assured, Flock is still very much a game you can play on your own, without the need to have a pal along for the ride, the devs tell me.
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Wake up! There's a new Blade Runner game coming from Annapurna Interactive
Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth is the first game from their internal development studio
Annapurna Interactive have announced their first internally developed game at their publishing showcase this evening, and it's an all-new Blade Runner game. Exciting! It's called Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth, and it's set "squarely between" the original Blade Runner film and its more recent sequel, Blade Runner 2049, say Annapurna. The reveal trailer doesn't give too much away at this stage, but I'm getting very big Her Story and Immortality vibes from it. Come and have a gander below.
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Steam Summer Sale 2023 has launched and the Steam Deck is up to 20% off
Plus some games are cheap too
Steam's summer sale is live now and will run until July 13th. As always, there are discounts across all kinds of games, including 30% off Elden Ring, 70% off Need For Speed Unbound and 40% off Valheim. Of particular note: there's also up to 20% off the Steam Deck.
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World Of Warcraft Classic is getting Hardcore realms where death is permanent but "fair"
It's in public testing now
World Of Warcraft Classic is introducing Hardcore realms where death is permanent. Blizzard say testing of Hardcore will begin on the Public Test Realm today, June 29th, and have outlined how it'll impact PvP, Battlegrounds, quests and more. In short: they're all being changed to try to stop your death being random or cruel.
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Cities: Skylines 2's traffic simulation includes car crashes, better pathfinding, car parks
And no hardcoded limits on resident numbers
Cities: Skylines often felt more like a traffic management sim than a city simulator, as I spent hours tinkering with my road networks to try to clear jams. Cities: Skylines 2 looks like it's going to support an even deeper level of tinkering, judging by two feature spotlight videos released on roads and traffic AI.
Among the new additions: car crashes, much improved pathfinding, and car parks. I find all of these as exciting as each other.
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Football Manager 2025 will be "for the first time in decades, a true sequel", say Sports Interactive
As it moves to new engine
Later this year, Sports Interactive will show and release Football Manager 2024, the latest in their long-running sports simulation series. In a blog post earlier today, studio head Miles Jacobsen described FM2024 as "the most complete version in the series' history", but also "the last of its kind."
That's because next year's Football Manager 2025 will apparently be, "for the first time in decades, a true sequel," and introduce a new graphics engine, new user interface, "advanced" animations, and women's football, among other changes.
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Robocop: Rogue City has a closed beta starting next week
As good as the first film? Or as bad as the third? We'll find out soon
Cyberpunk FPS Robocop: Rogue City is hosting a closed beta running from July 3rd - 9th, letting you step into the shoes of the part-man, part-machine violent law enforcer. There’s no word yet on what’s exactly included in the playtest, but you’ll presumably be shooting a ton of stuff, making things go boom, and using your inhuman strength to play ball with human bodies. (as seen in the gameplay trailer below.) You can register for the playtests here.
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Larian's "astronomical" RPG is also 4x the size of Divinity: Original Sin II
Rare news, folks! RPG threequel Baldur's Gate 3 is now coming out on August 3rd - almost a month sooner than its previously planned date of August 31st. The opposite of a delay, then. The good news was announced today via a community update from developers Larian, in which we also received more juicy details about the game’s D&D races and classes, new companions, and a glimpse at just how massive Baldur’s Gate 3 really is.
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The Electronic Wireless Show S2 Episode 21: PC Gaming Podcast Simulator 2023
Wait, is it still about PC gaming if sims aren’t games
When is a game not a game? When it’s a sim, according to the head developer of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. While we quickly agree on a "fair enough" response to this assertation of non-gameyness, we also can’t help but spend much of this latest Electronic Wireless Show podcast remembering the most fun we’ve in the diverse world of sims, be it some actual flight simulating or merely bullying smaller dinosaurs. Also: we chat about how big a deal it is that the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection might not support mouse and keyboard on PC, and discuss what we’ve been playing this week.
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Röki devs' Greek god friend 'em up Mythwrecked arrives summer 2024
Come look at its lovely new trailer
Non-linear friend ‘em up Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island is now coming out next summer after a slight delay, and the team have debuted a new trailer to mark the news. Mythwrecked comes from Polygon Treehouse, the studio behind 2020’s gorgeous adventure Röki, only this time the Norse mythology has been switched for some Greek dressing, and the snow has all melted away into sand. Come take a look at the friendly/ethereal/hot deities below.
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Hustle and bustle factor: very high
Earlier this year, Volker Wertich announced that he was returning to the citybuilding genre 30 years after he headed up The Settlers. We now have our first in-game look at his new project Pioneers Of Pagonia, which seems to dial up the economic management and actual building-of-towns side of the formula, rather than the RTS combat machinations. Take a look at the lush fields and construction down below.
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There's a new Vampire Survivors meets V Rising game in town, so why not try its free demo?
An Ankou is launching into early access next month
Following the lush card battling of last year’s Foretales, developers Alkemi are now trying their hand at an entirely different genre with An Ankou. The top-down roguelike casts you as the titular servant of Death, reborn and forced to continue working in the afterlife, mainly through killing demons and helping lost souls. Capitalism, eh? Lay your eyes on the reveal trailer below.
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Our 22 favourite games of 2023 so far
Come and see the current contenders for this year's Advent Calendar
Don't look now, but we're almost halfway through 2023. How is that even possible? I hear you cry. Well, I'm not entirely sure either. The last time I checked it was freezing cold outside and the sun went down at 3pm, but here we are with long, sunlit evenings and that sticky sheen of an early, muggy summer. Or at least it's been quite clammy in the RPS Treehouse this month, as we've all been sweating over our favourite games of the year so far.
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Deals: Need 64GB of DDR4 RAM? This $99.99 Newegg deal is worth looking at
Mushkin Enhanced Redline Stiletto 2x32GB DDR4-3200 CL16.
Yup, it's another DDR4 deal post - but this time, it's for the US market and covers a 64GB dual-channel kit, for all of you video creators, game server operators and high-number-likers out there. Newegg is offering a 64GB kit of Mushkin Enhanced Redline Stiletto DDR4-3200 CL16 for $99.99, a great price considering the same RAM kit cost $169.99 for Black Friday last year.
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Deals: AMD's entry-level Ryzen 5 7600X processor is available for £208
Versus a deal price of £250 six months ago.
When we last checked in on the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X in December last year, it had dropped to £249 in the UK. Now, the same six-core 12-thread Zen 4 processor is down to £208, making a Ryzen 7000 build surprisingly affordable - especially when you take in the drop in AM5 motherboard and DDR5 memory prices.
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Deals: The Solidigm P44 Pro 2TB is down to $117 and rivals Samsung's 990 Pro for speed
With a free mousepad.
I've mentioned SK Hynix before, the flash memory giant that made Intel's SSDs and is now making their own SSDs under the Solidigm brand. The Korean company has pursued an aggressive pricing strategy for these drives, and evidence of that is this latest deal on their flagship P44 Pro 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive.
The P44 Pro is now down to $117 at Newegg when you use code SSCT2827, a price that also includes a free mousepad - nifty. For context, the 2TB drive was selling for $150, making this a pretty tidy discount.
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Deals: Logitech's Mac-friendly MX Mechanical Mini keyboard is down to £99.99 at Currys
That's £50 below its normal UK price, and it comes in a lovely white/grey colour too.
Logitech makes some of the nicest peripherals in the business, from the G502 mouse to their G Pro X headset, but their MX Mechanical Mini keyboard is something special - combining low-profile mechanical switches with a compact layout, 2.4GHz wireless/Bluetooth connectivity and Mac/Windows compatibility, it's a keyboard for all seasons - or at least, a lot of different devices.
I've tested the keyboard for PC gaming, and I've found it quite lovely - so I thought I'd let you know that this model is down to £99.99 at Currys, which is £50 less than its usual price and a good deal for high-grade wireless mechanical.
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Hunt: Showdown’s first wild target is a massive gator boss who looks like mean business
Don’t go in the water. Or do, but take a gun
Player-versus-player-versus-nightmare monstrosity shooter Hunt: Showdown has patched in its latest boss, a flippin’ great big gator called Rotjaw who looks as nasty as she sounds.
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Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t as bad as it seemed at launch, but it was “cool” to hate, CDPR says
As studio vows to ultimately make good with players.
Cyberpunk 2077 was better than reviewers gave it credit for when it first released, but it struggled to overcome a “a critical mass of negativity”, the VP of PR and communications for studio CD Projekt Red has said.
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“We are confident that this will provide a more sound foundation for Skullgirls that we can all be proud of as we continue to grow and expand the universe in the years to come.”
The developers behind Skullgirls have made a number of changes to the decade-old 2D fighter in order to correct elements they now believe to be in “poor taste”. The outcome? Hundreds of negative reviews on Steam, of course.
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Developer Runner Duck found success in 2017 with their strategy-management-roguelike hybrid Bomber Crew, a game about moving characters around a mid-flight warship to keep it in tip-top shape. The team’s follow-up Space Crew took the action to outer space, in an FTL-style twist. And now that on-the-fly vehicular mayhem is coming down to the ground in the newly announced Badlands Crew.
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Last time, you decided that snap-to construction is better than fighting a little beastie then meeting the giant adults. I can respect that. It's practical. It's not bullying. Maybe you don't enjoy getting your comeuppance. But the alternative is still pretty funny. Onwards! This week, I ask you to pick between helping people find things in an environment and using part of the environment as a weapon. What's better: Tagging locations for teamies, or door violence?
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Come join our RPS Game Club liveblog for The Tartarus Key next Monday!
Hang out to chat spooky puzzles on Monday 3rd
This month's pick for our RPS Game Club is the nails sort-of-horror puzzle game The Tartarus Key, and we'll be doing another funtabulous liveblog to chat about it with you next Monday July 3rd at 4pm BST / 8am PDT. Is that a different month to the current one? Yes. But do I make the rules? Also yes. And, like Katharine was last time, I'm travelling right now, so Monday it is.
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Aquatic RPG Dave The Diver comes out of early access today
I seafood and I like it
Dave The Diver has launched in full today, leaving its early access shell behind. The game is a real platter of genres, mixing flavours of RPG, management sim, visual novel and more to create a unique kind of experience that made a real splash while it was in early access. Dave's quite popular tenure in early access had three chapters to its name, but the full release takes that number up to seven alongside new weapons, areas, and features for the deep-sea-explorathon. Take a look at the new release trailer below.
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Indiescovery Episode 13: Our favourite indie games from Not-E3 2023
Indie games fresher than Geoff's brand new trainers
Indiescovery is recorded a week before we release it, and never has this small time delay been more apparant than in our latest episode. Last week the temperature in the UK was (pardon my french) bonkers boiling. As we are professionals we recorded this episode with all of our windows closed and our fans turned off in order to avoid any unwanted background noise. Choosing to do this while sat in a British house during a heatwave actually violates several human rights laws, and we've all since been arrested for crimes against ourselves.
Oh, we also talk about our favourite indies from this year's Not-E3, which probably highlights the slight time delay more than the heat thing because in video game industry terms Not-E3 may as well have taken place 30 years ago. But listen, indie games are always relevant, aren't they? Plus I got to do a bit where I pretended to be a games executive in the intro so as far as I'm concerned it all worked out well in the end.
Listen and subscribe via your podcast provider of choice! Find us on RSS feed, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Deezer, and YouTube.
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Extraction shooter The Cycle: Frontier is shutting down because it's "not financially viable"
Cheaters have been a persistent problem
Free-to-play extraction shooter The Cycle: Frontier is shutting down servers and going offline on September 27th, developers Yager have announced. “Despite our best efforts and meaningful improvements brought to the game since launch,” they wrote in a Steam blog post, “the reality is that The Cycle: Frontier is unfortunately not financially viable,” leading to the game’s shutdown twelve months after launch.
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Bet you can't pick a password to meet this free game's increasingly silly requirements
Check out this great little browser game
I like to think I'm good at picking passwords. The real secret is to not pick passwords, it's to let software generate passwords for you, but I think I can pick a memorable yet secure password when required to. Well, I thought that until I played The Password Game, a free game you can play in your web browser. You simply need to pick a password which meets its rules, but it keeps introducing more and more which become sillier and sillier. It's a good joke and grows into quite a tricky puzzle game too. Plus it's free!
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FPS deathtrap-builder Meet Your Maker celebrates its first big update with a free trial
Try it for free until July 3rd
Death maze construction shooter Meet Your Maker is now free to play until July 3rd to celebrate the release of its first major content drop. Entitled Sector 1: Dreadshore, the big free update adds a new coastal location that has an appropriately grim lighthouse in it. It also doubles up as a research facility used to experiment on prisoners, which sounds like the perfect place to build hard-to-enter mazes.