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Gaming
Releases, platforms, and the people making the games.
4733 stories archived
For Control: Resonant's creative director, the series has always been "the Remedy version of an RPG experience"
I wouldn't label Remedy's Control as being much else outside of a shooter. It flirts with horror, it dabbles in sci-fi, but if we're talking mechanical genres, shooter fits it best. Then the sequel, Control: Resonant, got announced and turned out to be an action RPG. The bones of the original game are still evidently there in some ways, though in a recent interview, creative director Mikael Kasurinen shared that right from the series' early days, he's long thought of it as an RPG. Read more
Nintendo denied touchscreen-specific patent as the legal battle against Palworld developer Pocketpair continues
That Nintendo has been battling Palworld developer Pocketpair over "Pokémon-style monster capture and throwing mechanics" for a while now isn't a secret. The results (so far) aren't what the Japanese platform holder would have hoped for, however. Over the past few days, Nintendo has been dealt another blow after trying to obtain a touchscreen-specific patent. Read more
More gorgeous laser puzzles await you in The Talos Principle 3, the "final chapter" in the series
"What differentiates a story from the real world, or a simulation?" ask developer Croteam in a very Baudrillardy way in their announcement post for The Talos Principle 3. "The real world goes on and on, but a story must have a clear beginning, middle, and end. And so the Talos Principle, a story we have worked on for more than a decade, must also come to an end." Sad! But they're right, all things must end. Read more
Time to re-Kinect? Sell-out family console Nex Playground is about to release in the UK and Ireland
Nex Playground, the family-focused and camera-based console that's had considerable success in the US, is about to be released in the UK and Ireland. Pre-orders begin today at Amazon, Argos and Smyths Toys, and the Nex Playground will launch at an unspecified point in late June. Read more
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight feels like an Arkham game because Rocksteady co-developed it
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight releases this week on Friday 22nd May (tomorrow, 19th May, for Deluxe Edition owners), and a recurring talking point around the game has been how alike it feels to play as the celebrated Batman Arkham games developed by Rocksteady Studios. Turns out there's a good reason for that: Rocksteady helped make it. Read more
"This is gonna break your mods": Stellaris is getting nomad empires, aka "moving planets", despite Paradox previously deeming this "impossible"
Sci-fi 4X strategy game Stellaris is getting a Nomads expansion on June 15th that lets you jettison traditional ideas about territory and play as a wholly mobile civilisation - travelling around the galaxy in Arkships that serve as colonies, shipyards, and military or science vessels. You know the old Terran saying: home is wherever you park your trillion tonne hermetically sealed artificial habitat. Here's another, related Terran saying: a trillion tonne hermetically sealed artificial habitat parks wherever the hell it pleases. The expansion will launch alongside free Stellaris update 4.4, named Pegasus. Developers Paradox have put together a choice of nomadic lifestyles, with inspirations that appear to range from the Mongolian Empire through Eldar Craftworlds to the work of Douglas Adams. Read more
California bill pushing to keep games playable after server shutdowns passes key hurdle, paving way for full assembly vote
A Californian bill aimed at game preservation and backed by the Stop Killing Games campaign has been voted through by a state committee focused on the fiscal cost of proposed legislation - thereby taking a key step closer to becoming a proper law. The bill, as we've previously reported would require that studios either take action to keep games running after server shutterings, or provide full refunds if it passes in its current form, and faces opposition from the Entertainment Software Association. Read more
Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi praises AI-generated FF6 remake teaser, is promptly told "please stop" by SaGa's Akitoshi Kawazu
As Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 nears completion and we continue to wonder about the long-rumoured FF9 remake, series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has praised a teaser for a hypothetical remake of FF6. The problem is it's fully AI-generated. Read more
Subnautica 2's first update will add a sprint button, because players are building their bases too big: "they might want to go a little bit faster"
Subnautica 2 splashed into Steam early access yesterday, sending tidal waves of money into the bank accounts of developers Unknown Worlds and publishers Krafton. You planning on paying that $250 million performance bonus, then, Krafton? Now that the game has been on sale for a whopping 17 hours – roundabouts how long it takes to clean out the current early access build - it's time to start squawking like seagulls for patches, updates and expansions. Fortunately, creative media producer Scott MacDonald told RPS and other journalists a little about Subnautica 2's first patches in a roundtable interview last week. The short version is that the initial update will mostly add stuff to the progression and base-building systems, alongside tweaks to the voice logs, some extra lore, and an on-foot sprint mechanic. After that, there's a co-op-focussed update with proximity voice chat, emotes, and player revives. And after that, we enter the realm of proper expansions with new vehicles, biomes, leviathans, tools, resources, and the continuation of the story. Read more
Forza Horizon 6 makes a viable Steam Deck game, assuming you can find room to park it
Forza Horizon 6 is already Steam Deck Verified, which I’m forced to concede makes much of this article surplus to requirements. Yes alright, big green checkmark, you can convey the meaning of "it works" without publishing an entire performance and settings guide, or indeed needing to spell out the words "it" or "works". But then we’ve known that since March anyway, so I guess we’re both stating the obvious. Or are we? FH6 may follow Forza Horizon 5 down the smoothly tarmacked road of full Deck compatibility, but it still requires some extensive quality-lowering to escape sluggishness – its brisk pace on desktop PCs being much harder to match on handheld hardware. At the same time, sticking the Very Low preset on and being done with it robs the game of most of its Forza-standard lustre, at least traces of which can be kept without sending framerates off a cliff like a confused satnav. Read more
The Adventures of Elliot's development team has quietly been mastering the modern minigame, and its latest action-RPG once again shows us how it’s done
I still think the best example of the Switch 2's funky new mouse JoyCon exists in the horribly named Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster. If you've followed me from my old haunt at VG247, you'll have heard this before, but I think it bears repeating: the best demo of the new hardware doesn't come from the Switch 2 Welcome Tour or something like Drag x Drive, it comes from a re-release of a 14-year-old 3DS game. Yes, really. Read more
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight review
There's something that really stood out for me as someone in the UK who collected American comics at the end of the 1980s. It's that each new comic you got was a doorway to a world of absolute chaos and gimmickry. I'm not talking about the comic stories themselves, but about the American ads that were suddenly blaring out of the alternate spreads. Topps bubble gum cards. Garbage Pail whatevers. Endless enticements to buy Bayou Billy on the Nintendo Entertainment System. You'd be reading about Batman, knocking gloomily around some Gotham spire, and then you'd turn the page and, WHAMMO, something completely bizarre was being pitched at you. Read more
Forza Horizon 6 is lightweight enough to perform on just about any PC - though its new ray tracing modes slam on the brakes
Forza Horizon 6’s bootful of PC-specific tech features was apparently stuffed enough to warrant a big, colourful blog post about them. Ultrawide support? Yes. DLSS 4 and FSR 4? Both. Ray tracing? A resounding hai, those souped-up lighting and reflection effects escaping FH6’s car-ogling mode and adorning its open world for the first time in the series. Actually playing the thing, however – and/or spending enough time in its benchmarking tool – reveals that its PC performance highlights mainly concern the absolute basics. On standard settings this is most definitely a smooth-running game, one that’s capable of scooting along on budget builds and handheld PCs while zooming through frames on powerful graphics cards. But, that’s not necessarily with the help of bleeding-edge tech. Upscalers like DLSS disappoint more than they impress, and the performance tax levied by those RT effects will drag you down from supercar luxury to framerate poverty. Read more
Sektori's solo developer can finally pay themselves a salary after Nintendo Switch 2 success
Last week's Nintendo Switch 2 release of Sektori, a brilliant twin-stick shooter that's a lot like Geometry Wars, has finally met with enough success that the game's solo creator has been able to pay themselves a living wage. Read more
Exodus' former studio head James Ohlen touches on why he left Archetype Entertainment: "I was running on fumes"
Back in December of last year, despite being the head of the studio, James Ohlen left Archetype Entertainment, also leaving his role as producer on Exodus behind. It was a bit of a surprise, given that he co-founded the studio after having retired from BioWare in 2018. Now, in a recent interview, Ohlen explains why he made the call, coming down to potentially the most unifying experience in game dev: burnout. Read more
For its 24th anniversary, Final Fantasy 11 is getting a free trial upgrade that lets you play it for as long as you like
Final Fantasy 11 is the MMO that just keeps on ticking. It's the game's 24th anniversary today, which still isn't old enough to make it the longest running MMO, but does make it old enough for those of you that played it when it came out to have grandkids. The game isn't just still running either, but getting new updates too, with a livestream held on the Japanese Square Enix YouTube channel yesterday marking the anniversary with details of what's still to come. Quite notably is the fact that the free trial is getting massively expanded. Read more
Sony announces price increase for new PlayStation Plus subscribers "due to ongoing market conditions"
Sony has announced that PlayStation Plus prices are rising for new customers in "select" regions, but that if you're an existing subscriber, the price change does not apply - not unless the subscription lapses or changes. Or unless you are in Turkey or India. Read more
Subnautica 2's no-killing ethos "will be a continued point of resistance" among players, say Unknown Worlds, but they have no plans to change it
With the early access release of otherworldly diving sim Subnautica 2, developers Unknown Worlds are dealing with some familiar criticisms about the new survival game's absence of weaponry or outright combat elements. Speaking to RPS among other journalists in a roundtable interview, design lead Anthony Gallegos acknowledged that Subnautica 2's emphasis on living with, rather than confronting larger, dangerous organisms will be "a continued point of resistance" for some players, while reiterating that it's the heart of the game. Read more
CD Projekt Red has enlisted Destiny 2: The Final Shape's narrative lead for The Witcher multiplayer spin-off Project Sirius
Kwan Perng was one of the main writers on celebrated Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape and Guild Wars 2 expansion End of Dragons, and now they'll be the lead writer on CD Projekt Red's multiplayer Witcher spin-off Project Sirius. Read more
EVE Online's Cradle of War expansion wants to make the space MMO more welcoming to new players, before killing them in galaxy-wide omniconflict
The effective onboarding of curious yet noncommitted first-time EVE Online players is a conundrum that developers Fenris Creations, formerly CCP Games, have been trying to solve for decades. Many are enticed by the MMORPG’s purely player-spun tales of espionage and military adventure, only to bounce off its dense hull of complex economic spacemaths and a sandbox occupied by oft-unpunished pirates and con artists. Perhaps the game’s next big expansion, Cradle of War, will have more luck when it launches on June 9th. Read more
Forza Horizon 6 will unleash the Wankel-powered Furai to kick off its Festival Playlist car additions
Forza Horizon 6 is out in full next week, so naturally Playground Games have already started to spool up the motors of its live-service events and car rewards. The Festival Playlist gets going on May 21st, and fittingly its first series will offer a chance grab one of the funkiest concept cars Japan have ever produced. Read more
Lego 2K Drive is being delisted in a matter of days despite only being a few years old - grab it before it's bricked over
Lego 2K Drive is set to be delisted from storefronts next week, an update to its various pages by publishers 2K has revealed. The brick-heavy racer's listings are biting the dust three years on from its release in 2023, with its online servers set to follow around this time next year. Read more
Come dribble with me over this pitch for Total War: Redwall, in which Shrimp 'n' Hotroot soup is a vital strategic resource
Total War: Redwall is not an actual Total War game, unfortunately, nor even a mod like Mossflower TW. It's an evolving pitch from Reddit user BuildingAirships, one among many thousands circulating on yonder internet, like logboats riding the rapids of Noonvale. The latest update is about a potential cooking and feasting system, with all of the comestibles sourced from the groaning banqueting tables of the Brian Jacques books. Read more
"We see this as the beginning of the end of the Apple Tax worldwide" - Fortnite returns to the App Store globally as Epic prepares for "the final battle"
Fortnite has returned to Apple's App Store around the world (*excluding Australia) as Epic Games proclaims "the beginning of the end of the Apple Tax worldwide". Read more