The Sunday Papers

Sundays - well, very early Sunday mornings - are for watching a whole queue of hungry wild animals pass your kitchen window, because a neighbour has decided to leave a bollard-sized catfood dispenser outside the block entrance while they're away on holiday. I'm pretty sure the neighbour's cat wouldn't eat from the dispenser even if there wasn't a badger wedged eagerly inside it. She's an aloof and disdainful creature, who hates going near the front door because that's where those stinky humans come from.

Will I try to feed the poor moggy, denied her dinner by a bunch of Farthing Wood rejects? No I will not, because I'm too busy reading articles about videogames, and things that are vaguely in the orbit of videogames. Here are a few of those articles. Look, please stop fretting about the cat. She's perfectly plump and glossy, whereas that badger looks like he hasn't had a square meal since August.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

It's well and truly not summer now. I'm writing this with the lights on because the screen's backlight is suddenly too bright for these eyes grown weak and lazy by the abundance of natural illumination.

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"If the player trusts you enough, they are not going to savescum": Why the makers of some of the best RPGs on PC want you to get used to failing

When it comes to RPGs, I am an irredeemable savescummer. I admit it. I'll slam F9 at the drop of a hat (perhaps the hat was dropped as a result of a failed dexterity roll. Unacceptable. Reload).

So when I recently found myself reloading a Divinity 2 save for the umpteenth time in a single session, I started to wonder - in a genre that's supposedly about storytelling first and foremost, why am I viewing botched persuasion checks as something to be studiously avoided? And why is it that I feel totally different about making a horrible mess of things in tabletop roleplaying games?

After all, some of my fondest memories of real-life roleplaying are moments of extravagant failure: sometimes of the bathetic stepping-on-a-rake-instead-of-slaying-the-necromancer variety, and sometimes of the much more grounded, human, and affecting type.

It all got me thinking: how do RPG developers think about player failure? Would they recognise the distinction between digital and tabletop that I'm describing? And can they convince a savescummer like me to renounce my ways?

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Helldivers 2 and Horizon Forbidden West delisted from Steam in the UK, Sony say they're "working with Valve to address the issue"

Helldivers 2 and Horizon Forbidden West have disappeared from the Steam store in the UK, something that's happened rather out of nowhere and looks like it might've even taken publishers PlayStation by surprise. Said publishers have issued a statement noting that they've already reached out to Valve to get the games back up.

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"They often don’t make it in the door": Wardogs studio Bulkhead check for "anti-crunch messaging" on prospective hires' social media, CEO says

Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer has revealed that the studio behind recent FPS hit Wardogs check the social media accounts of prospective hires for public criticism of crunch practices, and deliberately prefer to avoid bringing such folks on board. In the exec's view, devs working extra or long hours to get a game or update out of the door - otherwise known as crunch - "is going to happen at some point", even if the studio "always try and avoid it".

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Total War: Shogun 2's Complete Edition adds 50 minor factions in return for breaking your mods, but fear not, players who stick to the old version will get legacy DLC for free

If you recently glanced at Total War: Shogun 2 and thought "gosh, lovely hip-and-gable roofs on that miniature of the temples in Kyoto, but this could really do with oh, let's say 50 additional groups of quarrelsome swordsmen", then congratulations, Creative Assembly are adding "50+" minor factions in Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition, an all-in-one remaster hamper due to launch on 13th October via Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store and GOG.

This fancified and expanderised, 64-bit edition of the 2011 strategy game will include both the Rise and the Fall of the Samurai DLC expansions, together with updated lighting, shadows and textures. Also: "modernised controls", which makes me frown a little in the absence of details, together with 1440p and 4K UI scaling, and Japanese and Chinese voice acting and localisation.

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Lies of P's sequel is a Wizard of Oz homage called Wonders of O, going by a Neowiz trademark, and probably not a videogame based on a famous work of French erotica

Earlier this week, trademarks were spotted over at the European Union Intellectual Property Office for a videogame or videogame-related Something called 'Wonders of O'. The trademarks were registered by South Korean company Neowiz, who also happen to be the publishers of excellent puppet-powered soulslike Lies of P.

Given the shared title format, online sleuthyfolks have wasted no time identifying the project as the Lies of P sequel developers Round 8 teased back in 2024, alongside an untitled horror game.

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