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Going by three hours with a preview build last month, the Indiana Jones of Indiana Jones And The Great Circle has the hungriest hands this side of Thief 2014. They're always surging into view, reaching restlessly toward objects as you explore, for there is ever so much to touch: photos and letters; pipes, frying pans, and other blunt implements; relics that translate into "Adventure Points", used to "unlock" books of skills; camouflaged levers and other chunks of fusty comicbook exotica...

about 6 hours ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

I missed my chance to write about Hollywood Animal when a certain Nic Reuben swooped in like a rival showbiz talent scout and pinched the summer Steam Fest demo from right under my nose, capitalising on the fact that I was stranded in an airport at the time. I wrote about a very rude Minesweeper "homage" instead. Hopefully that was for the best. Anyway, it's finally my chance for a bite at the apple, for developers Weappy Wholesome have just...

about 6 hours ago

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A number of Call Of Duty: Ops 6 quality assurance staff from Eden Prarie, Minnesota have walked out in protest over Activision's ending of hybrid or remote working, which was announced in December last year. They're being supported by the Communication Workers Of America union, who claim that Activision are forcing the return to the office on staff "with serious medical conditions and doctor's recommendations to work from home". As reported by Eurogamer, Activision workers group ABetterABK have also issued...

about 7 hours ago

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Bungie have been fairly quiet about Marathon, the upcoming extraction shooter they announced in 2023. Yesterday they released a devlog in which game director Joe Ziegler seemed to want to reassure fans of the studio that the game was still in development. He talked around a lot of the game features, without actually saying much about it. As yet, there's still no footage of the game in action, making its previous release window of 2025 appear even more tenuous. Marathon...

about 11 hours ago

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Spider dislikers, your concerns have been noted. At least by Capcom, anyway. The developers of Monster Hunter Wilds are including an option in the upcoming beast-skinning action RPG that will turn all arachnid style monsters into something much less creepy and/or crawly. The spider-free option was spotted by players of the PlayStation Plus beta test (as noticed by Automaton). It's called "Arachnophobia assistance" in the accessibility options, and reads: "Adjusts the appearance of multi-legged creatures such as arachnids, insect-like small...

about 12 hours ago

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Path Of Exile 2's early access release has been shoved back three weeks from 15th November to 6th December 2024, game director Jonathan Rogers has announced in a brief Youtube video. The action-RPG itself will seemingly be ready in time for the original launch date, but there's a load of "server-side infrastructure work" that needs doing. "One of the key promises we made is that all your microtransactions will work across both Path of Exile 1 and 2," Rogers said...

about 14 hours ago

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What Remains Of Edith Finch is a very upsetting collection of interactive short stories, all devoted to the tragically short lives of a cursed family who live in a monstrous treehouse. It's also a wonderful show of experimentation, switching genres from story to story - one minute you're a playable bestiary on shuffle, the next you're beheading fish in a cannery as the worktable disappears beneath your scrolling daydreams. The developer's next project seems to be pursuing a similar balance...

1 day ago

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We've seen beans racing, and penguins racing, but we have not yet seen cats racing. That is because cats will not stoop to such frivolities, where it can be reasonably avoided. Cats are too self-respecting to get caught up in silly online multiplayer party games. Please. Don't insult their intelligence, their divinity, their mastery of the environment and of your emotions. Cats don't need 2-9 player scrambles across the rooms of an eccentric manor house, with customisable outfits and various...

1 day ago

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It’s always nice to say that a big, look-how-much-we-spent-on-pore-rendering AAA game actually runs quite well on PC, as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 does. Unfortunately for Bl6ps, and for us, that technical success is balanced on the knife tip of some seriously overwrought infrastructure. Mainly in the form the UX nightmare that is the Call of Duty HQ launcher, as well as a meddlesome always-online requirement, itself serving a feature that doesn’t even work that well. If you can...

1 day ago

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Life Is Strange Double Exposure review A knotty mess of quippy dialogue and plot-driven missteps exist side-by-side with some beautiful and touching moments for the returning Max Caulfield. Developer: Deck Nine Publisher: Square Enix Release: Oct 29th On: Windows From: Steam Price: £50/$50/€50 Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7-11700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, Windows 10 You can feel two ways about something at the same time. The feuding academics of Life Is Strange: Double Exposure might call this "emotional superposition"....

1 day ago

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard review I’m not sure an hour passed in the fourth entry in Bioware’s fantasy RPG series where I didn’t wish they’d handled something differently. Then, once the credits rolled after 50 hours, I started a second playthrough. Developer: Bioware Publisher: EA Release: October 31st, 2024 On: Windows From: Steam/Epic Games Store Price: £50 /€60 /$60 Reviewed on: Intel Core i5-12600K, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 2070, Windows 10 If there’s one thing I’d like to get across...

1 day ago

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In case you don't know the headline reference, Orpheus was a mythical Greek musician who famously descended to the underworld to rescue his snake-bitten lover, Eurydice. The underworld's rulers, Hades and Persephone, were massively bummed out by Orpheus's emo lyre-playing, and swiftly agreed to let him lead Eurydice's soul upward to the waking world, with the extremely simple proviso that he not look back at her till they're both on the surface. Being a love-drunk spannerhead, however, Orpheus couldn't resist...

1 day ago

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I've often thought lighthouse keeping would make a fine second career, albeit mostly because in my head, it would give me endless time to write (and finish Baldur's Gate 3). You won't have much time to write in Static Dread, sadly. The world has ended, the oceans teem with unspeakable biofauna, and it's your job as the apparent sole surviving lighthouse keeper to distinguish vessels loaded with eldritch horrors from vessels loaded with people who need saving from eldritch horrors....

1 day ago

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One of my biggest challenges as a writer has been tempering my love of vague gestures at metaphysical concepts with the revelation that the people who read my articles also, apparently, can’t read my mind. Pah. A skill issue if I ever saw one, honestly. Decade is a fascinating adventure game that drew me in with its apparent vagueness but then, like some sort of considerate, sensible coward, went on to explain itself well in on its Steam page. It’s...

1 day ago

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Back in April, I wrote about a hearing that took place between representatives Video Game History Foundation, the Rhizome project, and the Software Preservation Network, in which they argued the case for a DMCA exemption that would allow researchers to remotely access out-of-print games in libraries and archives. Representatives from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and the AACS were in opposition, with ESA legal representative Steve Englund at one point fretting about some sort of hellish "online arcade that (he’d)...

1 day ago

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This week is the week of Halloween, a period bountiful in horror games, but I write about horror games all the time anyway. Even when I'm writing about happy, upbeat games, I'm actually writing about horror games. I'm worried that if I double-down further on morbidity I might foul the Maw's humours and give it jaundice. So let's see if we can satiate the creature with some nice, breezy open worlders and RPGs instead. I'll throw in a single horror...

1 day ago

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Booked For The Week is our weekly chat with industry folk about the books they love, have loved, and are hoping to love in the future. Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! Most of us know about the novel, the novella, and the rare novito, but did you know that Penguin briefly tried to market the ‘big...

2 days ago

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If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. The Sunday Papers is our weekly roundup of great writing about (mostly) videogames from across the web. Sundays are for doing things you haven't done in a long time, like a long stretch after years trapped in a languorous hunch. Former Edge designer Andrew Hind has launched On, a premium print magazine in which he and editor-in-chief Nathan Brown invite...

3 days ago

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Ys X: Nordics launched in Japan last year to some critical acclaim, and it has now made its way both west and onto PC. The PC version has a bunch of graphical upgrades and keyboard support, but also - unlike predecessor Ys IX: Monstrum Nox which got co-op as a cheeky post-launch bonus on PC - Ys X: Nordics has local co-op from day one. Ys X again stars pretty boy protagonist Adol, but this time is teamed-up with pirate...

3 days ago

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Cities: Skylines received its final piece of DLC last May, as developers Colossal Order shifted their focus to its sequel, Cities: Skylines 2. Eighteen months and the release of Cities: Skylines 2 later... Cities: Skylines 1 is getting new DLC again. The "Mountain Village" creator pack add 45 new buildings designed to help you construct quaint and picturesque destinations. Many of Cities: Skylines DLCs were created by community members and that's the case here, but developers Colossal Order have also...

3 days ago

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Babbdi was one of our favourite games from 2023. STRAFTAT is a multiplayer shooter from the same developers and it's exactly as transportive as its singleplayer cousin; not transportive to an unknowable brutalist city, but to the year 2000 - in the best possible way. It's out now. Edwin wrote about Straftat's demo during Steam Next Fest earlier this month, but I can't resist the opportunity to write about the full release. STRAFTAT - Official Trailer Straftat launch trailer.Watch on...

3 days ago

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Weekends are for walks in the woods, washing your whites, wolfing down waffles, and other domestic pursuits that start with "w" - please, continue the list. Alternatively, play some video games. I will not insist that you alliterate your video game picks, but I won't tell you not to, either. Here's what the Treehouse are up to. Brendan I'm dog-sitting for relatives this weekend, so the only game I will be playing is fetch. And probably some Connections on my...

4 days ago

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The precision-platformer is a torturous genre at the best of times, and now developers Brlka and publishers Ysbryd Games have seen fit to combine it with Silent Hill. Their forthcoming Love Eternal is the story of Maya, a girl whisked off to a "castle built of bitter memories" by a weird, lonely god, and obliged to make her way "through over 100 screens filled with spikes, lasers, switches, and traps". When not getting spiked or lasered, Maya appears to spend...

4 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

Rock Paper Shotgun has a fuzzy conception of "news", in that we regard the "new" element of news as sorely overrated, more of a guideline than an obligation. The trick to selling this mindset gracefully is to overclock your obnoxious narcissism until it levels up into stylish solipsism. "It's news to me," I sternly insist, while announcing a game you might pedantically observe was actually announced in 2019. "I can obtain no reliable empirical evidence that this existed prior to...

4 days ago

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Rebecca Jones (RPS in peace) really liked 10 Dead Doves when she wrote about it back in 2022, saying it reminded her of why she “loves weird low-budget spooks so much”. Discovering such an interesting project speaks to curiosity and taste on her part, but me? I am simply a pun enjoying buffon who got an email promising that “Dovecraftian horrors await”. The thrust of said electronic mail was that the game now has a release date of this December,...

4 days ago

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Complete Factorio's Space Age DLC and - feelings of acute megalomania aside - you will be able to upload a snapshot of your game to the "Galaxy of Fame", this being a digital night sky from which your cataclysmic industrial exploits shall gaze down eternally, for the instruction and/or disillusionment of tomorrow's factory builders. The star map, which you can check out here, is developer Wube Software's "last little surprise for Space Age", which launched earlier this week. You'll be...

4 days ago

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Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered review A remaster of a 2011 action-horror game often considered a cult classic, this will not doubt please fans wanting a return to Shinji and Suda's underworld, or newbies who want some 7/10 silliness. Unfortunately, it's all undermined by some terrible misogyny. Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture Publisher: Grasshopper Manufacture Release: October 31st, 2024 On: Windows From: Steam Price: £30/€30/$30 Reviewed on: Intel Core i7-12700F, Nvidia RTX 3080, 16GB RAM, Windows 11 Look up major events...

4 days ago

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The creators of "beautifully designed yet imprecise platforming adventure" Tales Of Kenzera: Zau are working on an Afrofuturist gothic-horror RPG with isometric visuals and a body-sharing dual character premise. Currently known as Project Uso - the Swahili word for 'face', 'appearance' or 'surface' - it'll take place in the same world as Kenzera, and will take inspiration from Surgent Studio founder Abubakar Salim's experiences of parenthood. Providing, that is, the developers can find enough money to make it. "As soon...

4 days ago

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Real ones know that the only XCOM spin off worth its salt is Hasbro’s 1999 play-by-mail banger First Alien Invasion, although that didn’t stop System Shock 2 studio Irrational from getting to work on an FPS set in the strategy series’ universe after being acquired by 2K in 2006. If your sentiments are anything like I remember a lot of the internet feeling at the time, you may get nightmarish flashbacks to the trailer below, first shown at E3 2010....

5 days ago

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If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. I played Balatro for an hour, had a pleasant time, then uninstalled it. I know a trap when I see one. Perhaps you are made of stronger stuff than I am, however. Perhaps you like that monkey on your back. For you, there's a new free update, which adds a second set of themed card art to the game inspired...

5 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Windblown looks rad. It's an action-roguelite for 1-3 players in which you dash-and-slash in rapid combat on floating islands, and I am extremely interested in feeling its game-feel for myself. Good news! I can get my game-feelers on it now because it's out in Early Access today. If you watch its launch trailer below out of context however, you might...

5 days ago

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Blizzard announced earlier this year that BlizzCon wouldn't happen in 2024, with the live event instead being replaced by a series of franchise-focused streams. Next on the schedule is Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct, which Blizzard have now announced will stream on Wednesday, November 13th at 6pm GMT/1pm ET/10am PT. "It's a big year for the Warcraft universe and whether you're a Hearthstone fan, you've joined the chaos in Warcraft Rumble, ventured into the world of Azeroth for the first time...

5 days ago

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A huge scary bearded man has just kicked down my door. His face and shoulders are doused in tactical Dorito dust. His eyes are heavily redacted. He's got assault rifles and comparison screenshots poking out of his ribcage, which are making an absolute mess of the hallway plaster. He says he is Call Of Duty Man, and he is here to let me know about Black Ops 6's day one patch. The new Activision FPS is out tomorrow 25th October,...

5 days ago

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Zotac are one of the better graphics card makers of the post-EVGA era, so even as the early pangs of handheld gaming PC fatigue start to creep in, I’ve been keeping a hopeful eye on the Zotac Zone. This is their take on a Steam Deck rival, or more specifically, the Steam Deck OLED, as this is the first real competitor to go for a similarly star-bright, colour-erupting AMOLED display. Cor, phwoar, and indeed, wowzers. Much like a Zotac GPU,...

5 days ago

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New Polish studio From Chaos consist of former members of Witcher developers CD Projekt Red, Frostpunk developers 11 bit studios and 4X household Paradox Interactive, led by erstwhile Gwent programmer Tomek Dietrich - so it's no huge surprise that their debut game, Liegecraft, is a big beardy historical strategy RPG. It's a hex and turn-based experience in which you play a dinky little despot running around a medieval world building castles, taking vassals, mustering armies, and going on quests that...

5 days ago

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Ubisoft Montpellier's Beyond Good And Evil 2 has been delayed so much that it has transcended the label of "vapourware", while staunchly refusing to become "abandonware". Announced in 2008, it has now comfortably outstripped Duke Nukem Forever as the "triple-A" game with the longest development time. I'm sure there are a few indie passion projects that have been bubbling away in the shadows for longer, but nothing on this scale. What's less tangible than vapour? Ectoplasm? The promises of small...

5 days ago

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The developers of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 have released an update to the third-person shooter that reverts a lot of tough difficulty changes made in a previous patch. Turns out upping the spawn rate of the vicious Tyrannid baddies across all difficulty modes was not welcome among the meathead murder boys of the Imperium. And this change wasn't the only one that caused enough ructions to justify hasty recalibrations from Saber Interactive. Last week, patch 4.0 for the action...

6 days ago

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In order to make Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 enjoyable, Saber Interactive had to make the Space Marines less like Space Marines. That's to say, less like "semi-lobotomized, hypnotically indoctrinated slave-soldiers in thrall to an uncaring (and possibly non-existent) god", in the words of Rick Priestley, primary writer for the original Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader rulebooks back in the 1980s. In Warhammer 40,000's supposedly satirical, definitively grimdark Imperium Of Man, the Space Marines are the genetically engineered sons and warrior-monks...

6 days ago

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I know there's a lot of good metroidvanias floating around, but I implore you to take a look at Stardust Demon. Developed by two-person queer married team resnijars, it looks like a real charmer. All bright and fuzzy and with plenty of alien weirdness to hop over or battle, with lots of FMV cutscenes to bring those colourful characters closer to your eyeballs. It's also out now, which is good for people like me who crave bizzarovanias. Stardust Demon Launch...

6 days ago

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It’s hard to pick out the highlights from the Steam Deck’s latest SteamOS update, 3.6.19, just because its collection of tweaks and fixes seems to span the entire gamut of handheld PC hardware as a concept. Graphics driver improvements! Third-party SSDs working better! More balanced display colours! No more "spurious power LED blinking"! Brilliant, I hate spurious power LED blinking. The original LCD Deck also now gets the Steam Deck OLED’s overclocking controls in the BIOS, which you’re welcome to...

6 days ago

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To be fair, there are several, far more substantial additions teased in Total War: Warhammer 3 design director Mitchell Heastie’s latest blog on the strategy game’s upcoming Patch 5.3. There’s also some interesting insight regarding design decisions, and the systems CA are hoping to tweak in the future. We’ll talk about that in a moment, but first, I must draw your attention to this magical map. I’m very excited about it. Not so much for what it does on its...

6 days ago

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I'd rather command a small troop of ruthless husks to fight my battles than do the dirty work myself - and in the game [Weyyyyyy! -RPS staff]. That's reason number one as to why I'm interested in Skull Horde, an "auto battler dungeon crawler" which casts you as a necromancer in a tiny pixel art world. Reason number two is that it's coming from the developers of the explosively moreish Bore Blasters. Find a teaser trailer below. The teaser trailer...

6 days ago

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Ghost Bike, the upcoming cycling 'em up from Nidhogg makers Messhof, is now called Wheel World. The name change is designed to reflect some substantial changes to the game itself - and there's a new trailer to show its current condition as a seemingly chill game about tinkering with bikes and riding them around pastel-coloured worlds. WHEEL WORLD | Gameplay Trailer Wheel World's new trailer.Watch on YouTube The main issue seems to be that "ghost bikes" are a thing in...

6 days ago

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Minecraft's Bundles Of Bravery update has been out for a day or so and I have already created and lost several hardcore mode worlds. I'm having a lovely time. The update brings hardcore mode to Bedrock Edition for the first time. Check the box when creating a new world and your game is locked on Hard mode, with the added wrinkle of permadeath. Fall foul to a long drop or surprise Creeper attack and your world can no longer be...

6 days ago

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Football Manager 2025 has been delayed until March 2025. This means football fans don't have a new iteration of the series to play alongside the real-world football season, and many players have been wondering whether Sports Interactive could instead release a data update for Football Manager 2024. Alas, SI say they've looked into it, and it just isn't possible. "Following the announcement of the delay to FM25, many of you have called for an official FM24 update with season 2024/25...

6 days ago

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Wilmot Works It Out review A relaxing follow-up to Wilmot's Warehouse, but one that loses the box-stacking sense of satisfaction. Developer: Hollow Ponds, Richard Hogg Publisher: Finji Release: Oct 23rd On: Windows, Mac From: Steam Price: £TBA/$TBA/€TBA Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7-11700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, Windows 10 One of my favourite internet jokes is: "I enjoy video games because they let me live out my wildest fantasies, like being assigned a task and then completing that task". Wilmot's...

6 days ago

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The Monster Hunter Wilds open beta will launch next week, Capcom have announced. It’ll be live on Steam from 31st October to 3rd November 2024, allowing the more impatient Capcommandoes amongst us to get a taste of the new setting and combat mechanics ahead of the game’s full release in February next year. As detailed on the official site, the beta includes the game's character creator and a couple of hunts. The first hunt is a story trial mode, in...

6 days ago

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Velvet 89 is a free hidden object game that tells the story of communist Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution" in 1989, which brought an end to 41 years of one-party rule and led to the founding of a parliamentary republic. The game released earlier this month, and you can find it on Steam, iOS and Android. I know nothing about the Velvet Revolution, but I do have some quick thoughts on the use of a format I associate with Where's Wally to...

6 days ago

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Developers Dreamlit have piped over fresh footage of their open world ecotribal extravaganza Towers Of Aghasba. It's an abbreviated but generous display of equatorial exotica and vaguely prehistoric wildlife, home to such key verbs as "exploration", "village-building", "gardening", "creature-nurturing" and "murdering megasloths with a lump of wood". And look at that, there's a release date perched on top - 19th November 2024. Towers of Aghasba: Gameplay Showcase + Release Date Announcement! Watch on YouTube Kaan liked this one when he...

6 days ago

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Over the past week or so, you may have caught wind of Denuvo - the makers of anti-cheat and anti-piracy software - embarking on a PR campaign of sorts, intended to combat negative public perception of their software. In case you're unfamiliar, Denuvo's wares have become infamous for allegedly sabotaging the performance of all sorts of video games, from Resident Evil: Village to Tekken 7, though accounts of the severity vary, and there is an on-going shortage of independently supplied...

6 days ago

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"Move over Hollow Knight," declared Katharine (RPS in peace) in our Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown review, summarising this freshly-honed hunk of POP art as "a deep and challenging Metroid-like with some of the best platforming this side of Moon's Ori games." Sadly, for all the plaudits, the game doesn't seem to have earned sufficient megabucks to justify keeping its development team together. Earlier this week, French journalist Gautoz reported that Ubisoft had disbanded The Lost Crown's core dev...

7 days ago

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I feel this one largely speaks for itself, honestly. I could theorise on the fictional conceit of bringing packaged creatures to life using a microwave and also, sometimes, a blender, but to do so would be to stare into a gift horse’s abyssal oat hole so intently that… …I was going to finish that with something about its molars staring back, but I had to quickly Google “do horses have molars?” only to misspell it. “Yes, horses can have a...

7 days ago

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Shin chan: Shiro And The Coal Town review A leisurely collectathon set in the Japanese countryside, which can't help but stick in your memory. Developer: h.a.n.d., Inc Publisher: Neos Corporation Release: October 24th, 2024 On: Windows From: Steam Price: £26/€30/$30 Reviewed on: Steam Deck When I was little, I really liked what I saw of Shin chan, even if it was just largely flashes of his bare arse on Japanese TV. He seemed mischievous, a bit of a menace, and...

7 days ago

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Did you have a fine old time in Blackreach, the mazy, Dwemer-built underside of Skyrim's sprawling mountain map? Do you like murdering Ents in slow motion? Do you want to see smells? You might be interested in The Axis Unseen, which has just launched on Steam - it's the work of former Bethesda developer Nate Purkeypile, one of the big brains behind Blackreach. The Axis Unseen isn't an open world RPG, nor is it a work of genre fantasy like...

7 days ago

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Shotgun King developers Punkcake Délicieux have quietly rolled out another ticklish oddity in the shape of Build The Sun, a work-in-progress 2D god sim. In Build The Sun you preside over a tribe of alarming yet cute inkblot creatures, who sometimes remind me of Pikmin and sometimes, of that awful 'roided-up panther monster from the opening stretch of Another World. Your objective is, indeed, to build the sun, because there isn't one: the game's pastoral pixelart world is engulfed in...

7 days ago

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Netflix have shut down one of their more trumpeted video game initiatives - a Californian studio known as team "Blue" and stocked with former Halo, God Of War and Overwatch developers. It was a major plank in Netflix's on-going efforts to extend their film and TV streaming empire to what Nic insists on calling the "greasy screen". The news comes via Gamefile and Stephen Totillo, who cites a company representative. Netflix have yet to make a formal announcement. Team Blue's...

7 days ago

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I forgot about just-launched horror game Tormenture when ravelling together this week's round-up of potent PC releases, but thankfully, Maw disciple Fachewachewa was on my case in the comments. It's one of your 'cursed video game' videogames in the spirit of Inscryption and Pony Island, and based on a quick blast with the demo, it seems lush. It's set in the 1980s, a premise I now automatically find horrible because I was born in the 1980s and that was, like,...

7 days ago

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Not many people hit the refund button on Sonar Shock, the indie immersive sim that’s rated Very Positive on Steam. But those that do tend to complain they couldn’t get the hang of the controls. You can understand why. Try to strafe left to dodge an attack from a blubber monster, and you’ll instead rotate on the spot. Attempt to turn the camera with a flick of the mouse, and you’ll discover that your view remains fixed in place -...

7 days ago

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Dave The Diver is getting a story DLC and, possibly, more games set in the same universe. This comes from an interview with developer Mintrocket's new CEO Jaeho Hwang, who spoke to VGC at Gamescom Asia about their plans to expand Dave and his diving. A future Dave may not even dive, but like, connive. Keep a beehive alive. Jive. Collect tithe. Hwang says that "besides the story DLC" that they're working on "right now", they also "want to make...

8 days ago

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If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. ‘Tis the season for new gaming CPUs. While Intel gear up to release their efficiency-focused Core Ultra 200S chips, AMD have announced a November 7th launch date for their Ryzen 9000X3D series – the latest to use their framerate-juicing 3D V-Cache. No specific CPUs have been named, for some reason, but we can be reasonably sure from leaks and retail...

8 days ago

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The Caves Of Qud developer has posted a cryptic riddle that sounds a bit like a release date in disguise. A post on the game's Steam page yesterday reads: "{n} purple wardens beseech the Chair, What is death, if one rose is fair? How long from beetle moon to beetle moon?" That means absolutely nothing to me. But at least one fan in the comments knows their lore enough to have translated it, resulting in a specific date later this...

8 days ago

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Gangstalk is a cat-and-mouse game in which you play both cat and mouse. It's a stalking game in which you are the person stalking you and also, you are the person being stalked. By you. Yes, I too am wearing an expression of puppy-eyed dismay and confusion. But it sounds interesting, sufficiently interesting that I can disregard the very loud DYSTOPIAN WORLD framing in the trailer. GANGSTALK: A Horror Game from the POV of Your Stalkers Watch on YouTube Devised...

8 days ago

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If you're fondly dreaming of an actual Steam Deck 2, not some half-and-half OLED travesty, you should also be fondly dreaming of a better class of battery. Valve designers Lawrence Yang and Yazan Aldehayyat have shared a little of the company's thinking regarding "generational leaps" in hardware, commenting that they don't want to release a Steam Deck sequel that is "only incrementally better", and in particular, that they don't want to release a new Steam Deck that is drastically more...

8 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

Back in the protean stink of 2013, the beast we call Factorio sprouted in lowercase early access form and began its meticulous, ravenous conquest of the emerging factory sim genre. Some say that Factorio gave that genre life, though I'd point at Dwarf Fortress as one among many notable forebears. Today, the terrain of factory simming is hotly contested by rival piles of conveyor belt spaghetti. I'm not just talking about Satisfactory or Shapez - they're even making philosophical factory...

8 days ago

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Vampire Survivors was our best game of 2022 and one of the best roguelikes, period. And over the years it's received a slew of updates that make it a bit bigger and a bit better, but nothing that's been mega substantial. That is, until today's announcement that it's getting an Ode To Castlevania expansion, classed by developers Poncle as the game's biggest DLC yet. More characters, more weapons, a weapon selector, an enormous stage. I simply can't wait to devour...

8 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

RailGods Of Hysterra is one of those games that, as it were, shovels a bunch of relatively dried-up concepts into the squirming furnaces of something appealingly ghastly. On the one hand, it's burdened by talk of "crafting", "base-building" and "survival" - all things I have enjoyed but am currently weary of, and which together make the game sound interchangeable with half of Steam. But it's elevated, on the other hand, by talk of living helltrains that eat crocodiles for breakfast....

8 days ago

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In a climactic scene of the original Final Fantasy VII, hero and amateur snowboarder Cloud Strife stands with his fellow adventurers as they are about to face a final, possibly fatal battle. With the steely glare of a polygonal warrior on the verge of killing god, he turns to them and says: "Let's mosey!" It's an unintentionally comical moment - an easy-going phrase, as if they're all going to the shops and not jumping into a big glowing pit at...

9 days ago

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Earlier this month, we learned that Star Citizen studio Cloud Imperium Games were mandating overtime for employees in the lead-up to their fan convention, Citizencon, which was held this past weekend. Additionally, this TOIL (time off in lieu) wouldn’t be made available until the release of space game Star Citizen’s accompanying single player campaign, Squadron 42. At CitizenCon over the weekend, CIG head promiser Chris Roberts said that he’s “confident” that Sqorty-two will release next year, 2026, via Ian Games....

9 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

Happy this week, everybody! In my efforts to achieve the absolute tranquility needed to spend five days shovelling PC game news stories into a ravenous otherworldly monster, I often go for an early morning walk. I tend to do this while wearing my trusty, enveloping Honcho Poncho, because the UK summer is thoroughly behind us and the very air has begun to squelch. Anyway, while walking this morning I think I actually scared somebody into crossing the road. It turns...

9 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Booked For The Week is our weekly chat with industry folk about the books they love, have loved, and are hoping to love in the future. No cool industry person this week, I’m afraid, but I do have a consolation prize for you. A comment from valued RPS community member #1694 a few weeks back reminded me that I once...

9 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

The Sunday Papers is our weekly roundup of great writing about (mostly) videogames from across the web. Sundays are for reconnecting with old friends, reminiscing about good times, and eventually going to bed feeling an unbelievable sense of calm, contentment, and a newly invigorated sense of self. Lol nah I’m going to play Mechabellum and eat gnocchi from a packet. Asda’s vegan pumpkin pesto is very good though. Here’s some writing I personally found interesting about games (and game related...

10 days ago

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This weekend marks the last chance to stuff your hands into the giant plastic tub of loose Lego that is Steam Next Fest, until the next one in like February or something. We’ve been smushing all our demo recommendations up against those of Eurogamer and VG247 in the Wishlisted hub, so there’s no shortage of us-approved tasters to catch up with. As for what we’re playing this weekend, well... Brendy I like the idea of dipping back into Hades 2...

11 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

This week, we're highlighting the best demos you can play during Steam Next Fest, which is running October 14th-21st. We're calling this Wishlisted, in partnership with Eurogamer and VG247. A trend of gambling-inspired games has surfaced in the wake of poker-like deckbuilding roguelike Balatro. The recipe? Take a standard game of chance you might find in any casino and mash an uncountable number of bells and whistles and gizmos and weirdnesses into it, then slather it in a "one more...

11 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

Deadlock gives me the shakes. Valve's not-so-secret third-person MOBA shooter is a fiercely competitive game of push and pull through monster-peppered city streets. You'll get into hectic scrapes with a giant blob man and come out of it sweating and swearing, and possibly alive. It is tactical, deep, instinctive, and an interesting work-in-progress. It elicits adrenaline almost as much as it forces murder economics down your piehole. This is the kind of game that puts you into a blistering, exciting...

11 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

This week, we're highlighting the best demos you can play during Steam Next Fest, which is running October 14th-21st. We're calling this Wishlisted, in partnership with Eurogamer and VG247. Deep beneath my desk lies a secret shame: impenetrable black thickets of power leads, sprouting forth across two overlapping extension units. Such a failure of cable management pierces my conscience like the beat of Poe's tell-tale heart, and yet I’m forever powerless – as in, I can’t be bothered – to...

11 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

You probably still know Fullbright as the studio behind Gone Home, a delicately experimental first-person yarn about a girl exploring her family home after travelling overseas, and learning about the turmoil in her absence. Picture that game in your mind: the quietness of the hallways versus the crash of a thunderstorm outside, the sickly-sweet 90s décor, the fairy lights and screwed-up balls of paper, the gentle amber pressure of cloistered teenage memories. Now, imagine a faint scuttling behind the skirting...

12 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Following their remasters of Star Wars: Dark Forces and PO’ed, the sickos at Nightdive have done it again, this time with 1995 FPS Killing Time. Despite being one of the eight people in the world with a 3DO in the house, I missed this one the first time around. Let’s learn about it together. Best start with the trailer. Killing...

12 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

Below the thunders of the upper deep, far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, its ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep Subnautica 2 sleepeth - but not for too much longer, as Unknown Worlds' open world survival game is due to surface in early access form next year. In the wake of last night's trailer, store pages have gone live on Steam, Epic Games Store and Xbox, shedding a bit more light upon the aquatic monster's nature and in particular, how it...

12 days ago

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Bloober Team have announced their next horror game at last night's Xbox Partner Preview showcase. It's called Cronos: The New Dawn and it's about - bear with me here - going to the past, harvesting souls, then going to the future so they can help you. It's all because you are, um, wanting to find a special rift in the future, so you can go back to a special version of the past. I think. Anyway yeah, it looks kinda...

12 days ago

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Genre tags are slippery, fickle things at the best of times, but I feel like each one I use to label Dunebound Tactics almost diminishes it, as I’m sacrificing something precious for the sake of powering on through the arid sands of easily comestible, digestible, poop-estible online content. Ah well, circle of life and all that. Plus, at least it’s thematic: you’ll have to make sacrifices yourself if you want to progress across its unforgiving deserts. This one’s got shades...

12 days ago

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Alan Wake developers Remedy have announced their very first multiplayer game, a three-person co-op shooter set in the world of Control and thereby, the Remedy Connected Universe. Previously codenamed Condor, it's called FBC: Firebreak - and I am going to immediately recommend they shorten it to Firebreak, because that caps-into-colon combo is going to wind me up when I'm writing news posts at speed. While I'm throwing my weight around, let me also instantly rebut the pedants who are even...

12 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

Remedy have released the first proper in-game trailer for Alan Wake 2's second expansion, The Lake House. It's billed as even more of a horror experience than the base game, and takes place in a research facility run by the Lynchian ghostbuster organisation you may have encountered in Remedy's paranormal shooter Control. As such, the expansion forms a direct connection between the games, and may - read: definitely will - harbour a few clues about the story of the forthcoming...

12 days ago

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Developers Unknown Worlds and publishers Krafton have given us our first proper look at their next open world exploration sim, Subnautica 2, which will launch on PC via Xbox Game Preview in 2025. It'll support four player co-op, alongside the returning singleplayer survive-o-buildy experience, and it'll take place on a brand new planet. Here's the reveal trailer. Subnautica 2 - Official Announcement Trailer | Xbox Partner Preview 2024 Watch on YouTube "Whether you're bringing the experience of your previous adventures...

12 days ago

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Bohemia Interactive have announced that Arma 4, the next big instalment in their shooter simulation series, will release in 2027. The announcement came at the tail-end of Bohemia's 25th Anniversary Concert, alongside some disturbingly gun-less footage of a coastal promontory with rippling ocean waters against a cloudy sky - it reminds me more of The Elder Scrolls 6's announcement teaser than any tactical mili-banger. Perhaps they're secretly making an open world walking simulator? I kid, I kid. Please put the...

12 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

Back in 2021, that dark epoch known as the Pre-Edwin Age, there was but one Ed at Rock Paper Shotgun - the venerable Ed Thorn, aka Edders. Edders had a dream, the dream of Halo Infinite getting a battle royale mode. Like Moses descending from the mount with a Needler in either hand, he bedazzled and amazed us with visions of "an enormous playground stitched together from some of Halo's most iconic maps of yore; Warthogs and Mongooses roaming the...

12 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

This week, we're highlighting the best demos you can play during Steam Next Fest, which is running October 14th-21st. We're calling this Wishlisted, in partnership with Eurogamer and VG247. Ever been in a position where two people are really going at each other, hurling pointed jabs and insults back and forth, and you're stuck in the middle? Well then, perhaps you'll empathise with the enemies in Archons, a twin-stick Vampire Survivors-like where you control two characters at once, and attacks...

12 days ago

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Nepos Games are the two-person studio behind Nebuchadnezzar, which Nate Crowley called "two thirds of an outstanding historical city builder". They've just informed me they're making a new building sim called County Of Fortune. It ain't a city builder, though. In fact, it claims to have murdered the city builder in cold blood, which is unfortunate, because I was really looking forward to a round of Manor Lords later. "The city-builder is dead, long live the county-builder," declares the press...

12 days ago

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Praise the gods, it's Hades 2 update day, and developers Supergiant are not mucking about. They have bolstered the nippy roguelike with a heap of shiny new things in this "Olympian Update", including a new weapon with homing attacks, a liver-pecking boss fight, two new animal familiars, and the home region of the Gods - mount Olympus. It's probably the biggest update they've made yet in terms of fresh sights. And by "fresh sights", I mean Dionysus sporting a leopard-print...

13 days ago

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In a recent chat with the Ian Games Network, IO Interactive boss Hakan Abrak said the Hitman developer "absolutely feel(s) like 20 plus years of training for the agent fantasy, creating an agent that travels the world and globetrotting whatnot, has given us some know-how" on bringing James Bond to the greasy screen ("greasy screen" is my new attempt at coining a "the big/small screen" but for games. I foresee big success.) Abrak is so confident, in fact, that he...

13 days ago

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Leadership at Don’t Nod yesterday “presented a reorganisation project to the employee representative bodies,” via financials report, in response to "a balance sheet that highlights the need to secure the company's resources" following the underperformance of Jusant and Banishers: Ghosts of new Eden. In plain terms, this means that up to 69 workers at the French company are at risk of layoffs due to an 11% year-on-year decline in operating revenue, via IGN. The number represents "29% of the Paris...

13 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

This week, we're highlighting the best demos you can play during Steam Next Fest, which is running October 14th-21st. We're calling this Wishlisted, in partnership with Eurogamer and VG247. I punched a cultist in the face in Streets Of Rogue 2, just because. He started running away - something I would not allow. When another robed cultist spotted what was happening, he tried to intervene, and a kind of Benny Hill pursuit chain began. We ran across a beach, through...

13 days ago

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Archetype Entertainment and Blur Studio's space RPG Exodus was announced back in December, and was broadly notable for a couple of things: 1) Matthew McConaughey plays a character, and 2) the game's story is woven around time dilation during faster than light travel, with star-hopping adventurers prosecuting a fight against evil Celestials over hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Now, it is notable for three things, the third thing being a cosmic blubber-spire of gurning faces who want to eat your...

13 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

This week, we're highlighting the best demos you can play during Steam Next Fest, which is running October 14th-21st. We're calling this Wishlisted, in partnership with Eurogamer and VG247. The existence of Knights In Tight Spaces, sequel to Fights In Tight Spaces, implies the existence of an unknown quantity or perhaps, an infinity of follow-up games that rhyme with both of those. Frights In Tight Spaces is the obvious horror spin-off. Sleights In Tight Spaces would be an urban pick-pocketing...

13 days ago

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Ah, what a pickle I’ve gotten myself into. I need to climb down from this table if I’m ever going to meet up with my teammates and finish the game, but the stupid zombies cannot get me if I stay up here. It’s an absolute gherkin, I tell you. A real cornichonundrum. The steel pipe in my right hand is doing a decent job of whittling them down, and the torch in my left lets me see the expressions of...

13 days ago

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Twitch have temporarily banned an account run by streamer Asmongold, otherwise known as Zack Hoyt, after he expressed genocidal sentiments about Israel's killing of Palestinian people in Gaza. According to the eSports journalist Rod Breslau, he's been sent to the naughty step for a grand total of two weeks, which I'm sure will be a huge inconvenience and will really teach him the error of his ways. Assuming Breslau's sources are accurate, it's a great demonstration of Twitch's tolerance for...

13 days ago

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Back in September, open world publisher Ubisoft put out a 3-days-weekly return to office mandate for their entire staff worldwide - a decision that French Video Game Workers Union (STJV) said was "made without any tangible justification or any consultation with the workers’ representatives". In response, the STJV called on staff in France to hold a three-day strike beginning yesterday, which the union reports to be underway with the participation of more than 700 workers, via Le Monde. "This decision...

13 days ago

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"Do you have a ping of 1000 or something," my opponent asked, during my inaugural bout of Straftat. Ah yes, this is it, that sense of unpleasantly intimate sheepishness. That's the withering late-90s chatbox scorn I've been missing, in this age of glossy live service multiplayer. I hid under a stairwell in order to meditate upon my response, then laboriously typed: "No, I just suck." Right on cue, the other player tumbled into view and shredded me with an AK....

14 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. This week, we're highlighting the best demos you can play during Steam Next Fest, which is running October 14th-21st. We're calling this Wishlisted, in partnership with Eurogamer and VG247.I’ve never learnt to drive, and while I’ve always told myself it’s impractical - unnecessary, expensive, potentially dangerous for someone with undiagnosed but, I suspect, incredibly likely dyspraxia - I’m not sure...

14 days ago

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Riot Games are cutting more jobs at their studios, the company announced today. This is the second time in a year the League of Legends developer has laid off workers. Chairman and co-founder of Riot, Marc Merrill, made the announcement yesterday, claiming that by cutting these jobs the company was "evolving League" and "investing heavily in solving today’s challenges". A total of 32 people have lost their jobs, mostly workers on League of Legends, according to a figure the developer...

14 days ago

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

This week, we're highlighting the best demos you can play during Steam Next Fest, which is running October 14th-21st. We're calling this Wishlisted, in partnership with Eurogamer and VG247. You might have caught this one during Day Of The Devs earlier this year. It’s stuck with me since because the developer Tanat seemed like a rad dude, and also because there’s nothing I cherish more than taking a bad pun and just absolutely going to town on it, marrow and...

14 days ago