Rock, Paper, Shotgun

What are we all playing this weekend?

James Archer — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 07:01:00 +0000

I’m a big fan of these September weekends where I wake up and my bedroom has neither the humidity nor the ambient temperature of an Eden Project rainforest-o-dome. Autumn was previously my third favourite season at best, but I think we need to have a serious conversation about top two.

The additional thermal headroom to comfortably run a toasty graphics card also makes this one of the better times to play games. Including these, and also, the ones you’re going to tell us about in the comments.

"Why do we need more graphics?": 2010's Alan Wake was as photoreal as videogames ever needed to be, reckons original Thief designer

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:29:41 +0000

Former Thief: The Dark Project designer, Ion Storm game director, and sometime Spielberg collaborator Randy Smith Evergreen has shared his probably-incendiary view that photorealistic videogame graphics need not have advanced any further than Remedy's original Alan Wake. For context, Alan Wake released back in 2010, when some of you people were screaming babies. Every touted breakthrough in visual fidelity since that golden year? A pointless indulgence and a reckless travesty. A middle finger jammed up the nose of god.

Smith Evergreen is entirely wrong, of course: videogame graphics actually topped out with PS1's MediEvil, still definitively the most faithful and convincing portrayal of an incompetent walking skeleton known to science. That said, this is an OG Thief designer we're talking about. Let's hear the poor soul out.

Rockstar had a mole in the union worker Discord server "for over two and a half years", GTA 6 company reveals during legal battle

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 15:31:24 +0000

Back in October 2025, GTA 6 developers Rockstar fired a group of 34, mostly UK-based employees on a charge of "gross misconduct", alleging that they had risked the leaking of confidential information while posting on a Discord server set up by union organisers. The ousted UK workers and their representatives have since taken Rockstar to court, accusing the company of getting rid of them to stop their union gaining enough members to win official recognition under UK law.

This week, both parties filed opening submissions at an employment tribunal in Glasgow, which Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive have emailed to RPS and Game Developer, among others. Taken together, the filings amount to over 100 pages of claims and counterclaims, with thousands of pages of evidence to be discussed in the coming weeks. Amongst other things, the docs give us more sense of events leading up to the dismissals, including the revelation that Rockstar had a mole or "whistleblower" passing them information on the people using the Discord server.

PlayStation reportedly dumped Hideo Kojima spy action game Physint over exceeded budgets, missed deadlines, and Death Stranding sales

Mark Warren — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 14:59:37 +0000

Earlier this week, Hideo Kojima-helmed action espionage game Physint switched publishers from PlayStation to Xbox, a leap across the console divide which might make it more likely to get a PC port. At the time, Kojima claimed PlayStation had tried to can the game, while the console makers tried to paint the divorce as an amicable split. Now, a report's shed more light on why Sony decided to ditch Physint.

Wardogs presents a different kind of FPS power fantasy: making fat stacks as a pacifist rideshare driver

James Archer — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:57:31 +0000

Because no-one entirely likes their job, I should be upfront about my issues with newly launched Early Access darling Wardogs, the mass-scale multiplayer shooter in which I’ve just found employment. Its "Play like to you used to" tagline and Halo 3-aping trailer smell a bit of reactionary, stuck-in-the-past thinking. It’s a mass-scale multiplayer shooter, so individual heroics rarely influence match outcomes. And, like pretty much everyone else who sucked down both those problems and tried playing on launch night regardless, I spent far too long attempting to communicate with server architecture that clearly had the resilience of overmilked cornflakes.

GTA 6 online mode appears to receive Rockstar's first public acknowledgment, via mention of in-development "32 player format" in legal docs

Mark Warren — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:34:17 +0000

Up until now, Rockstar Games have kept mum about what plans they have for the future of Grand Theft Auto multiplayer once GTA 6 releases on consoles in November. Thanks to filings submitted by the studio as part of the final hearing in a legal battle over the firings of 34 developers last year, that silence appears to have been broken.

EA's Saudi Arabian owners are reportedly considering forming an ubermegacorp by merging them with Savvy Games

Mark Warren — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 09:46:56 +0000

Just over a month on from a consortium led by the Saudi Arabian government's Public Investment Fund taking over EA, in a buyout worth $55 billion, said new owners are reportedly considering merging the publishers with their existing gaming firm Savvy Games Group. The result would be an ubermegacorp to serve as a vehicle for all of the Saudi wealth fund's future video game-related biz.

Do a bit of visual programming and watch your party of heroes conquer an evil tower in Dungeon Automata

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 21:54:53 +0000

The beautiful thing about people that like dungeon crawlers is that they're all sickos. Every single one of them! This is not a genre that's for the faint of heart. It is often plodding and methodical and conniving, so focused on stats and character classes that you could drown in the amount of numbers you have to pay attention to. So, how about a dungeon crawler where the battling happens automatically, and all you have to do is a little bit of programming? It's called Dungeon Automata, and trust me, the programming isn't as bad as it sounds.

Shroom and Gloom is a positively mycelial roguelike double deckbuilder that's now out in early access

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 20:26:31 +0000

There are probably many jokes one could make about mushrooms being edible, and mushrooms being like, edible, man in relation to Shroom and Gloom, a positively mycelial roguelike deckbuilder where you roam spore-filled dungeons with two decks of cards in tow. I won't do that though because that would mean having to think of them, and like Edwin before me, I just don't have it in me. What I do have is the ability to tell you about Shroom and Gloom, which is out in early access today.

GNOG and Goodbye Volcano High dev KO_OP share that they are laying off staff in the only, remotely good statement I've seen in a while

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 18:59:19 +0000

Today marks yet another day in reporting on layoffs that have occurred in the games industry over the past several years, with this occasion unfortunately being GNOG and Goodbye Volcano High developer KO_OP. The studio shared word that 13 staffers were being laid off less than two weeks after the launch of the studio's latest game, Young Suns, explaining the process by which this took place in a statement that provides an example of what should really be just the bare minimum in these situations.

Stylised XCOM-like tactics game Ex Sanguis straps Othercide's obsession with timelines to a leaner roguelike campaign

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 17:30:00 +0000

The nasal greenhorn strategy gamer understands "strategy" to be about mastery of space by means of clanging offensives, shining shieldwalls, and brute attrition, but the true Napoleon of Drag-Select knows that strategy is always, primarily, the mastery of time. I don't think Napoleon would have approved of Ex Sanguis. He would not have liked all the willowy clone women made out of congealed blood and pincers. He would have suspected them of being divorcees and Babouvists. But perhaps he would have appreciated the game's fixation with seizing the initiative.

"We’re going to become the new legend": Naoki Hamaguchi on making Final Fantasy 7 Revelation as if it's the last ever Final Fantasy 7 game

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 17:08:35 +0000

In this IP-obsessed world, it is quite easy to wonder if anything will ever actually come to an end. Theoretically, the Final Fantasy 7 trilogy of remakes will be coming to an end next year with Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. Except that might not even be true because a couple of pieces of DLC, about Sephiroth and Vincent Valentine respectively, are also in the works, so who knows when the actual end date is. Whether this is actually the end of Final Fantasy 7 or not, however, doesn't matter, as its director is treating it that way.

Skyrim’s official IKEA crossover mod might be the most deftly-assembled Elder Scrolls gag ever, if not an ad blueprint other corps should follow

Mark Warren — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 17:00:00 +0000

I didn’t think, when I saw the other day that Swedish furniture sellers IKEA had commissioned a group of modders to stick an advert for their wares in Skyrim as an official Bethesda-approved Creation, that I’d now be sitting here noting that I dug said creation’s dungeon designs.

Ubisoft games on Steam may soon no longer require the pesky Connect launcher, thanks to a new tool the publishers are testing

Mark Warren — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 16:17:00 +0000

Update: Ubisoft have confirmed the Steam announcement post about them starting to test a new Ubisoft Connect Services Steam tool is genuine, and they've now stuck it in Prince of Persia The Lost Crown's regular Steam news feed so everyone can have a read.

Original story follows:

Ubisoft are planning to start testing a new tool that'll allow Prince of Persia The Lost Crown Steam players to access features only usually available via the publishers' Connect launcher without actually having to have said launcher installed. That's according to a Steam announcement post which only appears to be visible to folks who already own a copy of The Lost Crown on Valve's storefront.

"We want to invite people into this big tent with this grimdark setting": Creative Assembly on how they plan to ease strategy newbies into Total War: Warhammer 40,000

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 16:10:56 +0000

I remember once when I was a child, my uncle was visiting and completely unprompted (and kindly) he gave me a copy of one of the Total War games, I think the Rome one, you'll have to forgive my memory. I'd literally never played a strategy game in my life, but I gave it a go anyway, and quickly found myself thinking, "hey, where are the collectibles? Why's there no triple jump?" The onboarding process did not help me much, and after a failure of a battle where I lost everything, I soon gave up after. So it's because of not particularly strategic people like me that makes me understand why developer Creative Assembly want Total War: Warhammer 40,000 "approachable and accessible".

Bargain with demons and boat with the dead in joyful RPG heist quest anthology Thousand Hells

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:00:00 +0000

You'd expect a game called Thousand Hells: The Underworld Heists to be on the depressing side, but this choose-your-own-adventure RPG anthology from the designers of King of Dragon Pass is an absolute tonic. It's a witty procession of Orphic descents, in which you assemble a crew of four garrulous weirdos and pitch them against quest scenarios that might involve talking trees, holy riddlers, and conduits of boiling blood.

There's an infectious, venturesome lightness to the game, which somehow persists alongside dire blunders and supernatural calamities that may see members of your party being cursed, punctured or unhinged. I've only completed a couple of the 10 heists across two hours of play, which makes me reluctant to call this an official review, but it's got my provisional recommendation. Come, reader - get thee to Pandemonium apace.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse proves Dead Cells' developers were the right fit for a revival in this blessing for the Belmonts

Ashley Schofield — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0000

"You're not the last Belmont anymore", Trevor reminds his daughter Rose, as they gently sail into a Paris ablaze and ripped apart by monsters. Rose knows it well, as do indie developers Evil Empire. Following their success with roguelike Dead Cells (and its own Castlevania DLC), Konami gave them the keys to Dracula's kingdom, trusting the French team to bring the series back to life after a ten year slumber. It's a heavy holy cross to bear, but Castlevania: Belmont's Curse holds it up confidently.

Steam beta update adds a new Big Picture view, screensavers, and a little treat for desktop Steam Machines

James Archer — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 11:30:51 +0000

There’s a new Steam client beta update out, and for SteamOS devices like the Steam Deck or Steam Machine – or just the Windows client's Big Picture Mode – it’s meaty one, features-wise.

As final hearing over GTA firings begins, Rockstar reiterate they "reject the claims" made by union and will defend themselves "vigorously"

Mark Warren — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:34:53 +0000

Rockstar Games have issued a statement making clear they're sticking to their guns, as the final hearing in the legal battle between them and a group of former staff they fired last year begins. The hearing's set to run from today, September 10th, until at least October 15th. The Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain (IWGB) and fired staff re-emphasised their stance earlier this week, announcing they'd be hosting a rally ouside the tribunal venue this morning.

Hideo Kojima spy action game Physint switches publishing allegiance from PlayStation to Xbox, probably increasing the chances it'll hit PC

Mark Warren — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:26:51 +0000

Physint, the action espionage game Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions announced a couple of years ago, will no longer be published by initial backers PlayStation. Instead, it'll be published by Xbox, who're already handing those duties for upcoming Kojima horror flick OD. Sony have tried to paint this switch as an amicable parting of ways with the long-time Metal Gear Solid director's studio, but Kojima himself has claimed that PlayStation initially informed him they planned to cancel Physint, triggering a three month long hunt for a new publisher to keep the game alive.

Wanderburg, a bullet heaven where you drive around a Frankensteinian hybrid of a castle and a tank, is out in early access today

Oisin Kuhnke — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Truth be told, I'm still not sold on "bullet heaven" as a genre. Name notwithstanding, the genre is certainly here to stay, and there always seems to be funny new takes on it despite the fact that Vampire Survivors did kind of start it off without much room for improvement. While I'm not sure if Wanderburg is an improvement (I haven't played it yet), I do conceptually like its approach being to hand you a modular medieval castle tank that can suck up sheep and blast cannon fire at your enemies. And it's out today in early access!

Pile cards on top of each other and watch the magic happen in the textured and chunky roguelike deckbuilder Stack Order

Oisin Kuhnke — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 19:00:00 +0000

I find it to be quite rare that when a game says it has a graphic novel art style that it actually has one. There's often just something that reads as slightly off, like it's not quite cut from the same cloth. I'm happy to say that isn't the case with Stack Order, a deckbuilding roguelike with a story all about layering your cards just right to maximise their effects that looks like you could find it in a hip and trendy French comic book shop.

Lovely anime Sherlock series The Apothecary Diaries is getting a PC game spin-off, with Maomao chasing down another court conspiracy

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 17:30:00 +0000

Terrible news, folks, it's time for another episode of "Edwin secretly watches a lot of anime and has bad anime opinions". Although I don't know how anybody could reasonably disagree with my affection for The Apothecary Diaries. It's kind of a Sherlock Holmes story, if Sherlock Holmes were a young female alchemist in a world broadly inspired by Tang Dynasty-era China.

Blood of Dawnwalker's troubled power fantasy has me yearning for a more desperate, systemic vampire survival sim

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Being a vampire is a pretty raw deal... or so the vamps inform us when they are not having freaky gothic sex, shapeshifting into wolves, enjoying the slimming effects of a uniquely low-carb diet, or enduring through marvellous future epochs we foolish cattle can only dream of.

I find most stories about vampirism tend to do a poor job of convincing me that vampirism is to be avoided. "Immortality is no gift, but a curse," breathe the bloodsuckers, like parents telling kids that staying up late only makes you tired in the morning, and I think: OK, so you're definitely going to outlive everybody you've ever loved, but also, 1) you've got marble hard abs, and 2) you're going to be knocking around when generations to come finally put a stake through capitalism and roll out UBI.

No Man's Sky's 10th anniversary update will let you rule space stations, built floating orbital bases and go on holiday to the sun

Mark Warren — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:30:00 +0000

No Man's Sky is a decade old. Let that sink in. No, seriously, you'll need plenty of water to survive the trips that the massive space game's 10th anniversary update allows you to embark on. It's now possible to get up close and personal with the stars that serve as suns in each system. Or, if the risk of fiery death's not your cup of tea, you can establish a new home by taking over as director of a space station or building an orbital base that floats among the stars.

Cult classic shoot-em-up Touhou Koumakyou: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil has a remake out now

James Archer — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 15:55:16 +0000

Touhou Project is Schrödinger’s shoot-em-up series: simultaneously a decades-running, 20-game strong (not counting spinoffs) multimedia juggernaut spawning one of the most active fan communities of the post-Trekkie age, and also some weeb curiosity that no-one I’ve ever spoken to has ever heard of. Either way, it’s been around for yonks, and has just seen the launch of its first official remake, of foundational 2002 entry Touhou Koumakyou: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Unionised Blizzard workers vote through contract giving them a say on genAI adoption and protection against layoffs

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 15:25:00 +0000

Unionised Blizzard workers have voted to ratify a new contract with their employer that will "require" Blizzard to negotiate with workers over any usage of generative AI tools in their workplace, in addition to giving laid-off workers the right to be "recalled" into open positions across Blizzard for 14 months after the date of their layoff announcement.

Blood of Dawnwalker devs Rebel Wolves are already looking for someone to help write a sequel, so here's where I'd like to see its vampy tale go next

Mark Warren — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 14:54:03 +0000

Look, I know it's way to early to be talking about sequels to The Blood of Dawnwalker, given Rebel Wolves' vampire RPG hasn't even been out a week as I write this. However, the game's devs are already putting pieces in place to get on with making such a game, so with help from strong spoiler tags, I'm doing it.

THIS IS A VERY STRONG SPOILER WARNING FOR THE BLOOD OF DAWNWALKER, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Rally Point: Strong simulation and team building can't carry Menace forever

Sin Vega — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 13:10:37 +0000

It's probably poor form to do another "what I said in a group chat" (this time, to culture critic Rowan Kaiser. Hermits can namedrop too, shut up) intro, but "Oh i already liked menace, that's why I hate it" feels too useful to spurn.

I don't really hate Menace. You've been there, though: a game you enjoy, perhaps even begin to love, but it keeps aggravating you, forcing you to vent before you can play it more. This one is carried through that by a core of turn-based shooting, with some interesting simulation and character levelling that often work well together. And some of its annoyances are natural update fodder during its early access period, as perhaps are some areas that currently feel lacking. But man, does it need that carrying sometimes.

Zombiepunk action RPG Stupid Never Dies is a vibrant feast for the eyes, ears, hands and teeth, even if it is a smidge overwhelming

Ashley Schofield — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0000

It's hard to know where to start when talking about Stupid Never Dies. An action RPG built on style, excess and punk ideology. I mean, within the first minutes of my demo starting, I am flushing undead protagonist Davy down a toilet in an abandoned shopping mall to arrive in a hellish arena.

There is a lot going on.

I'm not saying Fallout 4 modding drama gets to people, but here's Breaking Benjamin's singer begging concertgoers to try his AI-assisted first person mod

Mark Warren — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000

In my experience, the few minutes a live band take between songs to recover a bit before plunging into the next riff are generally quite uneventful. At the most, you might get an amusing story about what they've been up to in your city prior to getting on stage, chatter about the song they're about to play, or some light comedy night-esque crowd work. Or, if you attended a recent gig American rockers Breaking Benjamin played in Holmdel, New Jersey, a four minute promo segment for a Fallout 4 mod made by a lead singer who's been left frustrated by some modding community drama.

"You can never see outside of yourself": The House Before is a body horror game in which you are a house tunnelling through its own soul

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:30:00 +0000

It's a lovely morning in the village, and you are a horrible house. Wait, let's start that again. As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed into a horrible house. Wait, let's start that again: "You wake up as a House. Your limbs stretch through endless rooms filled with grotesque creatures. You can never see outside of yourself, never feel the world that lies beyond the fleshy walls of your body. You manage your insides as best you can, but you wonder: are you a good house or just a pale afterthought of the House Before?"

FromSoftware's first experiment with, of all things, horse armor DLC runs awry, as Elden Ring players manage to spawn free duplicate items in multiplayer

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:00:00 +0000

From Software and Bandai Namco have released a hasty new Elden Ring patch to stop people getting their hands on items from the game's Tarnished Pack DLC for free.

"Most people" at Bethesda wanted to make Elder Scrolls 6 before Starfield, claims Skyrim co-lead, but Todd Howard dragged them aboard his rocketship

Mark Warren — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

What came first, the chicken or the egg? I know, it's a tough one. I'll put it another way. What came first, Todd Howard's lone desire to make a space RPG or what the devs working under him had initially anticipated they'd be working on once Fallout 4 shipped? Well, according to a fresh account given by long-time Bethesda developer and Skyrim co-lead designer Kurt Kuhlmann, those among the latter who'd mentally prepped to be making The Elder Scrolls 6 right away were rather whisked along on an interstellar journey Todd seemingly charted a course for without much of a heads up.

Steam achievements for Persona 6, Fable, Stranger Than Heaven and a host of other upcoming PC games appear to have leaked

Mark Warren — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:00:48 +0000

Uh oh. Steam achievement lists for a smorgasbord of unreleased and unannounced PC games appear to have leaked via trophy tracking site Exophase. Atlus RPG Persona 6, RGG brawler Stranger Than Heaven, and Thief: The Dark Project Remastered have all seemingly had their trophies blabbed by the leak, with more imminent releases like Control Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall, and Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve also affected.

ROLLA is evil, fleshy, monstrous, B-movie-esque Katamari Damacy, and is out this month

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:45:23 +0000

Is Katamari Damacy an evil game? I realised as soon as I wrote the heading for this one that calling one game an evil version of Katamari might not be quite right, given the level of destruction you can enact in that series. Perhaps we're getting into an ontological argument there, so I'm going to move past it and properly introduce you to ROLLA, a game where you play as a mobile mass of flesh that seeks to wreak havoc upon the world by rolling around and destroying everything.

Humanity's best friend is coming to Old School RuneScape, and seeing a low-poly shiba has me temporally disoriented

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:00:38 +0000

"Low-poly dogs!" I hear you chant in the distance. "Low-poly dogs!" The war cry gets louder. "Low-poly dogs!" It's inescapable now, the low-poly dogs requested by the masses are here… Or, well, in the digital world of Old School RuneScape at the very least, as Jagex have added in a new members-only quest that allows you to pick up your very own puppy.

PowerWash Simulator devs FuturLab laid off staff and cancelled an unrevealed project earlier this year, but certainly kept quiet about it

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 16:17:54 +0000

It's another one of those layoff days, unfortunately. This time the studio in question is PowerWash Simulator developer FuturLab, who have laid off seven staff members with little fanfare after cancelling a project that has been in development for several years.

NBA 2K27 gives DLSS 5 a more faithful-looking game debut than feared, provided it’s running on the LeBron of GPUs

James Archer — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:37:46 +0000

Bit of an anticlimax, really. After months of (justified) revulsion and anti-anticipation over Nvidia DLSS 5’s AI rendering, it’s now available in a live game - license laden b-baller NBA 2K27 - and it looks... maybe not that bad?

This not-that-badness does come at an enormous cost to performance, and I’m still sceptical of how DLSS 5 will handle something more stylised than 2K27’s devotedly realistic depictions of varnished court floors and face-scanned athletes. But given how artistically botching and/or ridden with rendering errors the earlier previews have been, this specific implementation, in this specific game, is at least inoffensive in the looks department.

"Justice at last feels within reach": Final hearing in Rockstar and fired GTA devs' legal battle will kick off with a union rally

Mark Warren — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:06:12 +0000

The final hearing in the legal battle between a group of former Rockstar workers and the GTA 6 studio over the latter's decision to fire the former last year kicks off this week. It'll get underway on September 10th, and the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain (IWGB) - who're representing the fired staff - are organising a rally to take place first thing on that opening day.

Trump regime's Tetris ripoff yanked from White House website after Tetris Company declare they "take copyright infringement very seriously"

Mark Warren — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:45:22 +0000

Goodbye, Build the Wall. The Tetris-style game that the US government had stuck on the White House website as a way of promoting the Trump administration's commitment to brutalising and persecuting immigrants in the name of securing borders. After the Tetris Company hinted that they might be eyeing legal action, Build the Wall is gone, replaced by a far more palatable 404 error message.

"Material uncertainty" hangs over the future of Life is Strange developers Don't Nod beyond January 2027, as negotiations over potential layoffs begin

Mark Warren — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:31:55 +0000

Life is Strange developers Don't Nod have acknowledged that there's "material uncertainty regarding the company's ability to continue as a going concern beyond January 31st, 2027", as they kick off negotiations with the union representing staff who could be laid off as part of a "transformation project". The proposed cuts, which could see up to 90 jobs eliminated, are the latest development in the studio's efforts to make their financial future look less like a road to ruin which might run its course either this year or very early in 2027.

"20 players is the sweet spot": Guild Wars 3's action game combat is a first for MMOs, but it doesn't work at traditional raid scale

Julian Benson — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:09:32 +0000

Arenanet are keeping a lot of Guild Wars 3 hidden away. Throughout the short presentation of their new fantasy MMO, the refrain is 'We're not talking about that yet'. Mounts, professions, dynamic world events, even shops and the economy are all things the developers will talk about in the future.

Though, what they did show more than made up for it.

It's still very much possible to make good Skyrim mods "without any use of AI" in 2026, declares the maker of a new DLC-sized Black Marsh expansion

Mark Warren — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:25:25 +0000

The latest beefy expansion mod to hit Skyrim is an adventure to the Argonian homeland of Black Marsh, complete with hist trees and humid swamps. Though, its creator seems to be hoping the trip to the southern tip of the mysterious province will do more that just entertain, serving as a reminder that it's still possible for solo modders to make ambitious works happen for free without resorting to using generative AI.

New horror game The Well Is Not Empty combines photophobic monsters with timer light switches and a lot of frenzied digging

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 16:06:22 +0000

"Never show the monster," horror film-makers, game-makers and other creepozoids have chanted, over the decades. The Well Is Not Empty wastes no time showing us the monster - one of the monsters, at least - and doesn't seem especially the worse for it. I mean, it's the worse, but in a good way.

Look, you can see the monster right there, hunkered up like a frightened puppy in the corner of the room. A scrawny little fellow with broken xylophone teeth and eyes that genuinely do make me think of the view from the bottom of a well. The monster is no threat, as long as you stay out of grabbing distance - and as long as the lights are on. The problem, as you've already guessed, is that the lights are unreliable. A lot of the ceiling bulbs in the open areas are set to a timer. Best make sure you're back behind the sturdy radiance of those construction lamps before the ticking stops.

Combat and socially agonised teens impress in Persona 4 Revival, the RPG that series director Kazuhisa Wada feels a "duty" to make

Ashley Schofield — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 13:30:00 +0000

Look, before you say it, I know. Persona 4 Golden is held up by some as one of the best and most important RPGs ever. After all, it was the series' Final Fantasy 7 moment, where many of the mechanical and thematic threads of the earlier games finally knitted together and became something greater than their parts. You step into the shoes of Yu Narukami, a Japanese transfer student freshly arrived in Inaba. There, you use your limited time to make friends, study for your exams, and dive into a metaphysical dimension to turn-based battle the literal manifestations of your friends and rivals' twisted perceptions of themselves. Its story and characters particularly celebrated for their honest and painful looks inward at the parts of ourselves best left unseen. I’m a fraud for not having played it yet, with that sin only compounded by having had it in my Steam family sharing library for years. I have no excuse. I’ll face the shame-filled shadow version of myself, eventually.

This week in PC games: Wardogs, Shroom and Gloom, a heist game from the King of Dragon Pass creators, and a bullet time FPS inspired by F.E.A.R.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:33:27 +0000

Hello there, loyal regulars and filthy, fickle drop-ins! A merry New Week to you, wherever you are. Thanks for feeding the Maw while we were away last Monday. You were mostly successful in sating the creature's hunger and preventing cosmic disturbances, though we didn't get off scot-free: the Maw appears to have eaten one of the more popular videogame genres.

"We believe in the power of connection": Donald Trump Tetris parody game rouses the mildly worded wrath of the Tetris Company

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 11:23:21 +0000

Update: Annnnnnnnnnnnnndddd it's gone.

Original story below:

Those terrible firebrands at the Tetris Company have publicly rebuked the US government for publishing a Tetris parody game that promotes the Trump administration's brutalising rhetoric about securing the border with Mexico. They've even hinted that they're prepared to sue over it.

The parody game in question is called Build the Wall, and sees you stacking bricks along "the Southern border" in order to repel invading zombies. Unlike in regular Tetris - yes, I've played the Trump game, I'm definitely going to hell now - you aren't trying to clear lines of blocks. Instead, blocks defeat wandering undead of the same colour.

The game appeared last week alongside a swathe of other Trumpist propaganda games, based on the likes of Snake and Flappy Bird. A few of these games include goofy reworkings of Sony, Nintendo and Xbox console logo screens. The three platform holders have yet to comment. But the Tetris Company? They're coming out swinging with a... gently worded appeal to human community.

"You'll be able to engage in these high stakes arms races": Civilization 7's Arc of Tomorrow update aims to be a proper Cold War simulator

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 09:38:30 +0000

Civilization 7 is getting a new free update that takes the 4X strategy game into the atomic age, while trying to make nuclear era conflict a little more elaborate than just being first to research the requisite city-killing technology. Add in some new city state proxy war functionality, and you seemingly have everything you need to go full Henry Kissinger.

The Sunday Papers

Julian Benson — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Sundays are for luxuriating in the chill of the September air and hoping for more of the drenching rain that's ended the summer heat. Though, it's a luxuriating that's quickly pierced by the worry that we've seen the last warm weather of the year. Winter isn't far off and all the gaps around the windows in the living room are going to start making themselves known again.

Deliver packages in foresty mountains and avoid thieving boars in the Death Stranding-adjacent and quite calm-looking Pinetrail

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 21:53:46 +0000

I can take or leave a majority of Death Stranding's story (BB forever, though), but I gotta give it to Kojima: delivering stuff is fun. There's a genuine complexity to the process of deciding what to pack and how you pack it, making the simple act of delivering something like a pizza legitimately challenging. So I'm quite tickled by the look of Pinetrail, a much less apocalyptic delivery game where you drive a tiny three-wheel rickshaw truck transporting packages across luscious forests and mountains.

Laser Guy is a twin-stick "anti-shooter" about a stressed out game developer who can't stop shooting laser beams from his eye

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 20:33:25 +0000

Do I need to explain how Cyclops from the X-Men's powers work? I'm going to anyway just in case. He shoots beams from his eyes! More or less, I think it's technically energy from a punch dimension? I'm not an X-Men nerd though, so correct me in the comments. Main point is, he can never stop shooting those beams, which is why he has to always be wearing glasses at the very least. Which, as it turns out, makes for a fun video game concept, as it's now been manifested in the form of Laser Guy, a twin-stick "anti-shooter" all about not killing your co-workers.

The ESRB wouldn't let Valve release the cinematic trailer for Left 4 Dead 2, so what did they do? They "leaked" it, obviously

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 18:08:03 +0000

My only experience of Left 4 Dead 2 is a handful of sessions in my youth where a friend handed me a controller (me, a person whose shooter experience extended to Ratchet and Clank at the time), told me nothing, and let the chaos unfold. I did not do a good job. But it left a lasting impression! Though perhaps that impression would have changed had I seen its cinematic trailer as soon as Valve had wanted to release it. The problem was, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board weren't so hot on the game, including its marketing materials, so that left Valve with one option: leaking the trailer themselves.

Double Fine's first game post-Xbox split is a goofy bus driving sim all about slapping passengers who don't follow the rules and doing a good job

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 17:01:43 +0000

It's been a couple of months since Double Fine parted ways from Xbox, and they've been busy getting to work since that split. There's that game jam Kickstarter they recently launched that has Brutal Legend 2 as a stretch goal (just ignore the fact that stretch goal is $100 million). And now, the once again indie studio has announced their first game post-Xbox: Thank You Bus Driver, a very silly job sim where you drive passengers to their destinations, and slap them if they break the rules.

Mortal Shell 2's latest update adds in an experimental new mode that adjusts the challenge based on how much you do or don't die

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 16:12:49 +0000

Another week, another Mortal Shell 2 update! The first proper one arrived a week ago, and smoothed down some of the game's rough edges to make for a (slightly) more generous experience. This next update brings with it a bevy of changes, but most notably is an experimental adaptive difficulty mode that changes depending how well you're doing.

What are we all playing this weekend?

Julian Benson — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000

This is the first Saturday in a month I've woken up without a blocked nose or a mucus-hurling cough. Trips to Spain, Sweden, and Germany in quick succession and loaded on top of a cross country bike ride may have been a touch to much for my ageing body.

Still, at last, I am well. In body, if not in spirit. So, better start playing some games then, right?

"Top-down Zelda meets Bloodborne": action RPG Withering Realms is out now in early access, should you fancy riding the shoulders of a horrible doll

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:39:33 +0000

Withering Rooms was an unexpectedly devious and absorbing slice of dollhouse action-RPG horror. As such, I've been looking forward to Withering Realms, the standalone sort-of-sequel, which launches in early access today.

The new game takes place in the 1920s, following the 'premature' end of World War 1 thanks to an occult catastrophe. You play a ghost child, clinging to the shoulders of a living marionette. The marionette is a real fright, its body a coatful of springs and hinges, its face a one-eyed rictus: it reminds me of certain scenes from Phil Tippett's stop motion masterpiece Mad God and also, of Curly from Mouthwashing. You wouldn't accept if that thing offered you a piggyback. But it is pretty handy in a fight.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault review – a pleasant bout of number go up that’s most remarkable for how much of an improvement it is

Jay Castello — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:00:00 +0000

The Moonlighter games cast you as Will, a dungeoneer-merchant hybrid, delving into randomly shifting combat arenas by night and selling the treasures you unearth there by day. In the dungeons, you fight various monsters and beasties and are then offered upgrades to your combat build or a handful of relics you must fit in your bag. In the shop, you figure out how to get the best price for these items. And then you spend that money on upgrades that help you to dungeon delve better and start all over again.

All this time, you will be thinking about multipliers.

Playing Mass Effect-inspired RPG Exodus was an uncomfortably familiar space trip, despite some brilliant zero-G fights

James Archer — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:02:08 +0000

Full disclosure: I did not get to play Exodus with the grumpy mecha octopus sniper. "Where’s the octopus sniper?", I whispered, confusion melting into sadness as the two other members of my space station infiltration team stepped forward under the support of their dull, seen-it-all-before vertebrae. No, it’s fine. It’s fine.

I’d like to say that the demo’s shooting and roleplaying moments made up for the lack of squidmates. In some places, particularly when venturing back out into the vacuum, it actually did. But if Exodus really is going to occupy the Guns & Conversation space that Mass Effect is currently leaving vacant, I’d hope it’s holding much more in reserve, as the corridor battles and bland heroes I saw probably aren’t going to cut it.

Former PlayStation indie boss Shuhei Yoshida and the founder of TIGSource are throwing a Game Poem jam that "challenges traditional boundaries between art forms"

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0000

What are you doing across Monday 7th to Tuesday 8th September? If your answer isn't "weaving sick rhymes for PlayStation's former indie gaming boss Shuhei Yoshida and original TIGsource founder Jordan Magnuson", then begone, for we are no longer friends.

Lego Skylines' devs want your city's problems to be visible without digging into a stats screen, which means finding a "family friendly" version of showing homelessness

Julian Benson — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000

As pretty as Cities: Skylines is, getting a read on your city's problems can take some digging. While traffic jams are immediately visible, prompting you to start reorganising the layout of your streets and bypasses, other issues only make themselves known when you switch on overlays or bring up a stats screen. Changing that is one developer Iceflake Studios aims for colourful plastic brick-based spinoff Lego Skylines.

"If there's an issue, it should be visible in the world," game director Lasse Liljedahl tells me. "Everything that you need to worry about or manage is something you should see while zooming in and zooming out and not digging deep in statistics or information screens. That's the goal."

I’m an ethical muncher in The Blood of Dawnwalker, which means I’ve forced poor Coen to slurp up nine million rats

Mark Warren — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Coen, the half-man and half-vampire protagonist of The Blood of Dawnwalker, doesn’t like chomping down on rats.

I know this because he’s told me multiple times, after I’ve made him slurpily drain a rodent like it’s a furry Frube (other brands of tubed yoghurt are available). Sometimes he shudders a bit and makes noises of disgust. Other times he straight up says things like "This is not a nice thing to do". I know it’s not, farmboy whose family needs saving, but what’s the alternative?

Blood of Dawnwalker's first patch offers relief from buggy tutorials and tight-lipped NPCs, but Rebel Wolves are still working on fixes for the stuttering and shader crash problems

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:09:17 +0000

Witcher-flavoured vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker has received its first post-launch patch, with developers Rebel Wolves dipping their fangs into a modest neckful of problems with blocked quest progression and general controller behaviour on PC. They've also taught a blacksmith a new recipe. Alas, the devs are still working on fixes for those problems with stuttering, PlayStation button-mapping, and shader compilation we covered last night. Still, at least little Lunka will no longer get hopelessly lost while walking you through the tutorial.

Miami-Dade police outraged by proposals to turn parts of Miami into GTA 6, saying that Rockstar's game embodies what they "work every single day to prevent"

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:55:01 +0000

The mayor of Miami-Dade, Florida has been pitching Rockstar Games about transforming parts of the county into recreations of areas from Grand Theft Auto 6, in the face of complaints from law enforcement and members of the judiciary. GTA 6 is itself inspired by Miami, so yes, this is one of those "simulation colonising reality" situations. The proposed publicity event would include "an immersive arrival experience" at Miami International Airport. with signs for Vice City and planes coated in GTA 6 livery, together with branded Metromover skytrains and specially designed manhole covers.

It's a predictable bid to snaffle a few of those GTA marketing dollars, while driving up the regional circulation of affluent Vice City nuts. Also predictable: a few people, and specifically the cops, find the idea of their neighbourhood being mocked up to resemble a Grand Theft Auto game problematic. Miami-Dade sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez have already spoken out against the potential deal, observing in a joint statement that "we should be promoting the Miami-Dade we have worked so hard to build, not a fictional version of our community defined by crime and violence.”

Constantly reshape the world beneath your feet in the reality-bending "puzzle-first" Uncanyon, the next game from the devs behind the trippy Maquette

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 21:50:42 +0000

A problem that games have, I find, is that it's quite hard for them to inspire a sense of wonder. The kind of thing that old movies, before CGI, that would make you think, "how did they do that?" But games are all CGI, spiritually anyway, so it's a bit harder for the craft itself to truly wow in terms of not being able to comprehend how something works. However! I felt that today when I saw the reveal trailer for Uncanyon, a puzzle game from the devs behind Maquette set in the seam between unparallel realities where the very shape of the world is constantly in flux.

Mousey city-builder Whiskerwood gets a bit wetter today with a hefty nautical update that lets your rodent kingdom venture out on the open seas

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 20:39:06 +0000

You like putting a bunch of mice on a boat, don't you? Of course you do, it's always enjoyable seeing semi-anthropomorphic mice do human things! Now that we're on the same page, this is a good time to let you know that the new update for Whiskerwood, a city-builder where the cities are filled with mice ruled by nasty, greedy cats, has received a new update today where the friendly rodents can venture out to sail the seven seas.

While us lot in the West might like Dragon's Dogma 2's friction, Japan doesn't quite agree, and its producers say balancing that has been a real challenge

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 19:03:31 +0000

Both the original and Dragon's Dogma 2 are not games for everyone. Not in the Dark Souls, uber challenging sort of way necessarily, just in that they do not hold your hand, right down to not even having a lock-on feature in combat. There's a long list of other aspects that provide friction, interesting friction, that make the games so beloved. At least, they're beloved in the West, because folks over in the RPG's home country of Japan have a different perspective, a difference its devs find difficult to balance.

Experiencing some day one Blood of Dawnwalker issues? Its devs know, and have some temporary solutions to help get you bloodsucking

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:05:46 +0000

It's The Blood of Dawnwalker release day! The debut game of Rebel Wolves and the first new game from director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz since The Witcher 3. A day of what should be celebrations for many, I'm sure, instead a day of "oh, huh, this isn't running so well on PC, is it?" This is fairly common for big releases these days, but the devs do come with some temporary suggestions for the variety of issues they're aware of.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is best when it's silly, and despite some gloomy open world slogging, sometimes even remembers it

James Archer — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:00:23 +0000

The opening minutes of Onimusha: Way of the Sword are glorious, in the sense that they’re utterly shambolic. Wandering ronin Musashi wakes up under a bridge, belts a wrong-footingly British "WOT?!" at some starving urchins eyeing up his rice ball, then proceeds to be chased around a muddy village by what feels like two thousand martial arts students, only occasionally stopping to boot a wooden plank into their faces or scoop up an imperilled dog. It’s goofy and brash and genuinely funny, in a way that immediately looks to elevate it among the field of po-faced fantasy slashers as effectively as any well-honed parry mechanic.

Why in the following hours, then, does Way of the Sword make only occasional attempts to match this intro’s energy?

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's release date puts an end to the remake trilogy in sight, and then pushes that end a bit further away with Sephiroth and Vincent DLC

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 16:28:39 +0000

I'm pretty sure that by this point, Square Enix have shown up to every major gaming showcase this summer with something Final Fantasy 7 Revelation related (even if that German Geoff Night one was mostly a waste of everyone's time). However! The latest trailer offered the one thing that I know is on everyone's mind: will Cloud drive a motorbike again. Oh, and a release date.

The first big Crimson Desert DLC arrives in October, seems to be set in a crimson desert beyond Crimson Desert's existing crimson desert

Mark Warren — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:30:00 +0000

Crimson Desert's first proper expansion, not be confused with any of the ten million things Pearl Abyss have added to their vast expanse of stuff to do via free updates, is set to release next month. It's called Charting the Unknown, is out on October 15th, and looks to be set into a new realm filled with more game mechanics you've seen elsewhere shoved together to fill a vast open world.

Deck & Conn is a cat-and-mouse MicroProse homage to a 55-year-old Star Trek game that might not be chunky enough for today's simulation sickos

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:05:15 +0000

Space! The final frontier. These are the voyages of the USS Rock Paper Enterprise. Or they will be, once I've worked through my launch checklist. OK, says here I start by activating the APU. There's no "APU" on the bridge display, but I'm guessing they mean "auxiliary power unit". Done! Now I have to wait a few turns, then switch on the actual reactor, and spend another couple of turns waiting for it to fill the battery. Now I just activate my helm and sensors, and boom, we're away. Where was I? Ah yes... its five-year mission, to explore strange new worlds! To seek out new life and new civilizations! To boldly go where some very old Star Trek games have gone before!

"I'm a massive fan of Aliens, but it is a very different beast": Why Creative Assembly are still ignoring every movie but the original in Alien Isolation 2, despite heading planetside

Julian Benson — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:28:55 +0000

Creative Assembly have themselves a particular constraint when making Alien: Isolation 2. The sequel to their 2014 horror title would only reference their first game and the original 1979 Ridley Scott Alien film. It ignores all the other films that came after.

That includes James Cameron's Aliens, the immediate sequel to Scott's film, which, like Alien: Isolation 2, moves the action from a space station to an isolated planetside colony.

Planet Coaster and Jurassic World devs Frontier have teamed up with Disney to make what is probably a Disneyland tycoon game

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:45:53 +0000

Planet Zoo and Jurassic World Evolution creators Frontier Developments have signed a deal with Disney to make a game based on one of Disney's many entertainment worlds. Some immediate possibilities occur. You know what Frontier have a lot of? Theme park and resort management games. You know what Disney also have a lot of? Theme parks and resorts. If the fruit of their union isn't Disneyland Park Creator or some variation thereof, I'll eat Mickey Mouse's big yellow buttons.

The mishap-strewn warfare of Worms: Galactic Tactics gives hope it’s not just a comedy XCOM

James Archer — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:11 +0000

Gawd, everyone’s doing an XCOM these days. Star Wars is doing an XCOM. Rainbow Six is doing an XCOM. Warhammer 40K has done, like, four XCOMs. Those squeaky wiggletubes of Worms are at it too, with Worms: Galactic Tactics, a turn-based grid battler coming sometime in 2027.

It’s a busy genre, then, though there might well be room for this one too. I played a few rounds with developers Absolutely Games at Gamescom last month and it shows real, shrewd promise, despite slaying some of the wider series’ sacred bombsheep.

The Witcher Remake is currently on the back burner because progress on it depends on The Witcher 4's development, CD Projekt Red confirm

Mark Warren — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:54:07 +0000

CD Projekt Red and Fool's Theory might have used Gamescom to make clear that they've got a Witcher thing in the pipeline for this year and the next two, but they've also had to put one of their previously cat-eyed projects on hold for the time being. The remake of the first Witcher game is on the back burner right now, since the next stage of work on it requires more progress to be made on The Witcher 4.

"A game for everyone is a game for no one": Don't expect an easy ride in Carcass Clad, the co-op tank horror game from the makers of Mouthwashing

Ashley Schofield — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:15:00 +0000

On my final day of Gamescom, strolling (running) around the indie area to make sure I don't miss anything good, I stumble upon Wrong Organ’s upcoming Carcass Clad. Set in a wartorn Soviet city, empty of people but littered with tanks wearing coats of Frankensteined cattle corpses (light stuff!), Carcass Clad is a three-player co-op experience that shares the stressful responsibility of piloting a tank and taking down enemy units between those unlucky three.

If you read the name Wrong Organ and thought, ‘Wait, the Mouthwashing team? They're making a multiplayer co-op game?’, I can't fault your surprise. Edwin did interview them about it back in June, but I walked up to the booth knowing the devs themselves and little more, so I was experiencing all of Carcass Clad and its heavy departure from their previous work for the first time.

There's already a The Blood of Dawnwalker mod which triples the length of its main quest timer, ensuring saving your family from vampires isn't stressful

Mark Warren — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 09:43:09 +0000

Why the rush, The Blood of Dawnwalker? Your protagonist Coen's family have only been kidnapped by a vampiric dictator who's slowly draining them of blood. Let the kid take his sweet time in finding a way to deliver them from the castle dungeon. After all, he's got a tonne of bandits he could be killing and other fun little adventures he could be stumbling across as he explores Vale Sangora. The good news for folks who don't like even the vague idea that they need to get a move on in their hero duties is that Dawnwalker's taken less than a day to get a mod which substantially lengthens its 30-day family saving timer.

You can't pet the talking rat wall in Ontos, the new space horror game from Soma's creators, but surely it can run Doom

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:30:30 +0000

When Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Soma developers Frictional announced Ontos, their philosophical horror game set in a mad science hotel on the moon, the internet's jimmies were rustled by the presence of an AI server made out of rats. I have several questions for Frictional regarding that talking rat wall, based on my peerless track record of arts and technology journalism.

Rockstar unveil the "next evolution" of modded GTA 5 roleplaying, while staying totally mum on when PC pretenders might be able to migrate to their next game

Mark Warren — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 15:30:00 +0000

Yep. I know. GTA 6 is still on the list of storied crime games without a PC release date. GTA 5, though, is out on PC and has long been the place folks who love Rockstar's crime sandboxes so much they want to pretend they live in them go for a spot of GTA roleplaying. Rockstar appear to be sticking to Guh Tuh Ah Vuh for that sort of thing in the near future too, since they're currently trumpeting a new version of the modded roleplay servers run by Nopixel Studios.

"I just want to go back inside": How Creative Assembly use weather to make you crave claustrophobic interiors in Alien Isolation 2

Julian Benson — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 14:24:55 +0000

As I stand on the lee side of the wrecked haz lab, all I can hear is the rain pelt its metal roof and the feral wind howl about me. Planet LV-921 may have a breathable atmosphere, but it's not a safe planet. And that's before the xenomorph enters the scene and starts hunting the colonists living in Weyland-Yutani's Kurasaki mining station.

Alien: Isolation 2, the long-awaited sequel to Creative Assembly's 2014 horror game, moves the action out from the original's claustrophobic Sevastopol Station, but the developers have worked out ways to make the wide open spaces of LV-921 feel just as tense and trapping.

"The internet we once loved is gone": SteamDB founders announce the community-run database has been acquired by Nexus Mods' owners

Mark Warren — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:47:49 +0000

The owners of Nexus Mods have acquired community-run backend database SteamDB from its founders, the two sides in the deal have announced. The folks behind the former, who've held its keys for 13 years, said their decision to step back is rooted in burnout and a desire to find a suitable team to keep SteamDB running. Meanwhile, Nexus Mods' owners, a company called Chosen, have pointed to wanting to keep track of game updates from a modding perspective as one of the factors that's drawn them to make this deal.

In Dungeon Settlers, you build a colony on top of a teeming RPG labyrinth in a trim take on Rimworld

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:46:19 +0000

The first time I lost my whole party in Dungeon Settlers, it was to a swarm of rats. I think we can all agree that getting killed by rats in anything remotely fantasy RPG-ish is an enormous faux pas. It's like spelling your own name wrong on your CV. It's like accidentally wearing your underpants on top of your trousers. It's like failing to become Thane of Whiterun.

In my defence, I was playing the game on Hard difficulty, and the rodents of Dungeon Settlers have a zoologically improbable habit of keeping company with stone golems. Ever tried to crack a stone golem with a wooden sword? I have found it inconvenient. In any case, while my party wipe was embarrassing, it was also excellently macabre in the fine traditions of Dwarf Fortress.

Baldur's Gate 3's Mizora becomes a fully-fledged companion thanks to a new mod, just in case you fancy adding a calculating cambion to your crew

Mark Warren — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:37:25 +0000

Not content with just adding to the questlines and interactivity of Baldur's Gate 3's established gang of companions or working on their own for custom campaigns, modders have even started turning other characters from the game into recruitable buddies. The latest to get this treatment is Mizora, bane of regular party member Wyll's life and with a new mod, friendly force by your side in the RPG's third act.

"You can’t just throw new people at that problem": Bethesda devs doubt future Elder Scrolls and Fallout games will have the same "quality level", after losing seasoned staff to Xbox cuts

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:34:47 +0000

Unionised Bethesda Games Studios staff embroiled in Microsoft's latest round of mass layoffs have expressed further doubts about the company's ability to create games at the "quality level" of the very bestest Elder Scrolls and Fallout projects, as they continue to haggle with Microsoft over severance terms.

Aiming to supercharge The Blood of Dawnwalker's early mods, Nexus Mods release their own "streamlined" open-source Unreal modding tools

Mark Warren — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:02:28 +0000

The Blood of Dawnwalker, Rebel Wolves' vampire RPG with more than a touch of Witcher 3 running through its veins, is about to claw-slide down a wall into release street. Depending on where in the world you live, it'll either arrive late on September 2nd or first thing on September 3rd. Ahead of that, in a bid to accelerate modders' early attempts to put their own spin on the game, Nexus Mods have released some of their own open-source tools designed to cut some of the faff out of Unreal Engine modding.

The adult game crackdown is "ridiculous for our art form", say Hellraiser devs, but they think they'll survive thanks to that Clive Barker association

Julian Benson — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 08:15:00 +0000

Last year, Australian anti-porn group Collective Shout pressured payment processors, such as Mastercard, Paypal, Visa, and Paysafe Limited to withdraw their services from Steam and Itch.io if the stores didn't remove adult games from their shelves. The campaign was successful and many games were impacted. The campaign's had a chilling effect, leaving developers making games including any sexual content in a kind of limbo as to whether digital storefronts will host their work. Some are ushered through without issue, while others are banned with little recourse.

Just last week, we saw how Valve blocked Molleindustria's Future? No Thanks! due to its scenes of minor nudity. Then, only after public lobbying, did they manage to get Valve to reconsider and rescind their ban.

So, after playing a half hour demo of Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, a demo set almost entirely inside a fetish club, and one featuring male nudity, female nudity, and some pretty sexually explicit content, I asked the developers if they were worried about a Steam ban or if it had led to any changes to the game.

"It's just such a huge galaxy to fill": Don't expect any Total War: Warhammer 40,000 sequels, but do expect lots of updates that builds upon its sandbox

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 21:54:40 +0000

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 feels like one of those games where you think to yourself, "wait, how doesn't this exist already?" There have been previous Total War: Warhammer games, three of them in fact, but all set in the original, fantasy setting, not the far flung futuristic sci-fi one. We still don't know when Creative Assembly's Total War: Warhammer 40,000 is coming out, though they have shared one thing that will be different compared to the previous Warhammer games: they have no plans for any sequels.

Drive a train around an ash-covered world collecting ingredients for the last ever s'more as an anthropomorphic bird in the surreal and comically ominous Cinderline

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 20:45:20 +0000

There is perhaps no genre I love more in this world than "game where you run around as a little guy," for the subgenres within that are almost endless. A new entry is soon to find itself within that genre, and it's called Cinderline, a game where you play as an anthropomorphic, silent bird who wants to make the last ever s'more, gathering the various pieces required to do so by travelling from town to town in a tiny train.

Cyberpunk 2077 launched when it did because its devs wanted it "out the door" says CD Projekt Red CEO, but I wonder if he forgot about that reported mandatory crunch

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 19:05:09 +0000

Look, I know I don't need to tell you how much of a mess Cyberpunk 2077's launch was. There were tons of bugs, it didn't play smoothly, and your saves could even get corrupted fairly easily, so it wasn't an ideal experience at the time. The game has had something of a redemption arc in the almost six years since launch (one that CD Projekt Red thinks still needs to be finished), but despite whispers of investors pushing to get the game out the door at the time, joint CEO Michał Nowakowski says that wasn't the case.

Life is Strange developer Don't Nod look primed for layoffs, as the studio announces a "transformation initiative"

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 17:04:29 +0000

It is unfortunately that time of day again (because this truly does seem to be a daily occurrence at this point). Back in June, things weren't looking so hot for Life is Strange studio Don't Nod, as it appeared that they'd be out of cash come this November. Now, it looks like the studio is preparing for layoffs.

Double Fine are all in on making Brutal Legend 2, if you're willing to give them $100 million in their game jam Kickstarter, anyway

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:31:35 +0000

Under Microsoft's ownership, it was probably a safe bet that Double Fine would never get to make a Brutal Legend 2, even in this IP-obsessed world we find ourselves in. However! Microsoft don't own Double Fine anymore, and so the once again indie developer can more or less do what they want. Which they're already doing, in fact, as they're currently hosting a game jam Kickstarter that includes a stretch goal that'll see them making Brutal Legend 2. If you give them $100 million.

The Witcher 3: Songs of Past looked alright in its behind-closed-doors preview, though I'm more enticed by the remaster’s combat upgrades

James Archer — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:06:09 +0000

Well, I say behind-closed-doors. It turns out that if I wanted to watch a prerecorded saunter through a chunk of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt’s Songs of the Past expansion, I could have just tuned into the Gamescom livestream, rather than travelling to Germany before parking myself in an almost pitch-black miniature theatre for 45 minutes. Now my by-touch handwritten notes are completely illegible, and I don’t even get to feel smug about attending a super secret preview.

Still, the preview – which like Songs of the Past itself, was a joint operation between CD Projekt Red and co-devs Fool’s Theory – didn’t show off the expansion alone. It also focused repeatedly on the combat, movement, UI and role-playing reworks being introduced in the base game’s Remastered upgrade, which is coming months ahead of Songs of the Past on September 29th. And, usual hands-off disclaimers applying, looks like it could be the more appealing package for lapsed Witchers – especially as it’s free to owners of the original.

Nvidia DLSS 5 releases this week with NBA 2K27, so the AI yassification filter's busy beautifying basketballers early doors

Mark Warren — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 15:31:21 +0000

After being prematurely dug out of game files by modders late last week, Nvidia's DLSS 5 neural rendering tech is making its official debut in a matter of days. Yes, it's the filter which was criticised on reveal earlier this year for giving a bunch of game characters weird genAI makeovers. Unsurprisingly, given where those modders pulled the aformentioned files from, the tech's arriving with NBA 2K27.

All the RPS Supporter rewards for August 2026: fatty felines, GTA 6 pondering, and a heap of barely washed radishes

James Archer — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 12:40:06 +0000

You there. Have you completed the RPS Supporters survey? You don’t even need to be a Supporter. In fact, it’s better for certain questions if you aren’t. Either way, this is your chance to play a part in making sure our subscription rewards are as rewarding as rewards can be, which some might say is a reward in itself.

Star Wars: Zero Company devs left without pay, report claims, with "most" staff furloughed prior to launch

Mark Warren — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 11:44:31 +0000

Prior to releasing Star Wars Zero Company last week, developers Bit Reactor reportedly furloughed "most" of the team who made it, seemingly leaving said staff in limbo.

Skyblivion "will not be shadow dropping after over a decade of hard work", say modders still planning a regular release date reveal despite delays

Mark Warren — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:33:24 +0000

Skyblivion won't be following the lead of Bethesda's Oblivion Remastered with a sudden shadow drop of its own, the folks behind the massive Oblivion remake mod have confirmed. Instead, they've plans to reveal a new release date for the mod, which was previously being aimed to arrive late last year, when they're ready.

The Blood of Dawnwalker review - worthy to sip blood at the top RPGs' table

Mark Warren — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 16:19:26 +0000

The moment I knew The Blood of Dawnwalker had it came when, not far in, one of the local peat diggers fell into a big hole. Tasked with finding him by his brother at the start of what seemed a fairly mundane early fetch quest, I rolled my eyes a bit as I slid in to try and locate the poor sod. He was, predictably, cowering in a corner of the cave complex. Right, now to get out of here and claim a lifetime supply of partially decayed vegetation.

Wait, what was that noise? I’ll not spoil the rest of the quest, but suffice it to say that it provided the first taste of Rebel Wolves’ vampire RPG offering the same sort of memorable adventure as the series many of its devs cut their teeth on - CD Projekt’s Witcher and Cyberpunk games.

This week in PC games: Bank Holiday Mawnday Edition

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 07:30:45 +0000

Fleeing the intolerable glare of another weekday morning, you take the spiral stair that runs around the elven bulk of the Treehouse, and after hours of climbing, reach the Primrose Door. The light within the Tree is soft as syrup, spilling across a realm of marble, gold, and glass. Here the Sages of Rock Paper Shotgun belabour the decades debating the mysteries of creation, such as whether "Nvidia" should be written in all capitals. But what's this? The arching velvet sanctum lies empty.

The Sunday Papers

James Archer — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Sundays are for resting, so I hear, though by the time you read this I’ll have got up at 5:30am to drive my parents-in-law to Gatwick Airport. As such, I’m probably not the best authority on resting, or, indeed, Sundays. Nonetheless, I have gathered some quality game-related articles to help you fill yours.