The Guild: Europa 1410 is a medieval strategy reboot that plays like a fussy Kingdom Come boardgame

The Guild: Europa 1410 is a reboot of 4HEAD's strategy game Europa 1400: The Guild from 2002, created by the studio behind the well-regarded World War sim Last Train Home. My first hurdle in the Steam demo is working out who and where the hell I am. The demo treats you to a slice of Kuttenberg, a Czech city made famous to a lot of non-Czech people by Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2: at a glance, it could be the Warhorse RPG with a top-down mod.

It gives you wheel-churned roads among houses of wattle and daub; vegetable patches and windmills and furnaces roamed by dozens of 'living, breathing' folk in authentically muted period attire. All of it basking beneath a day-night cycle and a spread of weather conditions. All of it pleasantly hard to decipher from bird's eye view, though there's a highlighting function to boil away the scene-setting.

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Microsoft reportedly only announced Ninja Theory's new game at Summer Game Fest to try and attract a buyer for the studio

Hellblade developers Ninja Theory are one of the numerous Microsoft-owned studios currently facing a very uncertain future, as the company look to either spin off or shutter a bunch of the developers under the Xbox banner. In Ninja Theory's case, the news that their existence hangs in the balance was made even more jarring by the fact they'd revealed a new game, Senua, earlier this month at Xbox's summer showcase. According to a fresh report, however, Microsoft had already decided they were going to kill or part with the studio prior to Senua's reveal, with that showing aimed - at least in the eyes of Xbox execs - at trying to boost the chances of Ninja Theory attracting some new investors.

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Naoki Hamaguchi explains why Final Fantasy 7 Revelation has that subtitle even if the game's central theme is "Resolve"

When Final Fantasy 7 Remake part two was officially revealed to be titled Rebirth, an immediate question arose for pretty much everyone: what will part three be called? That question has persisted since Rebirth came out, with way too many people suggesting Reunion despite the fact they did that one for Crisis Core (seriously, what's with that). The answer was finally revealed this month to be Revelation at Summer Geoff Fest, and as it turns out, we all found out at the same time as pretty much everyone that's working on the threequel.

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What are we all playing this Steam Next Fest?

Saturdays are for… Wait, wrong game round up post. This isn't a What are we all playing this weekend?, this is where we'll be shouting about the gems (and lumps of coal) we've discovered in this week's Steam Next Fest.

From June 15th - 22nd, Valve are hosting a section on Steam where developers can share demos of their upcoming games. Though, while it's a good opportunity to find games to add to our wishlist, it is also a tad overwhelming. With roughly a gazillion demos to choose from, how on earth can you sift through them?

With the power of collective action!

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Assassin's Creed Shadows' final update adds one last story mission and a wearable Black Flag Resynced advert

Mostly decent open-world ninja sim Assassin’s Creed Shadows is getting its last big update today, as Ubisoft begin the process of shooing players away from the year-old RPG and towards the gleaming, nipple-adding newness of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced. The Shadows patch even includes an unlockable outfit based on Edward Kenway’s pirate garb, displaced only 150 or so years out of its appropriate time period for your synergistic brand awareness pleasure.

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Another Xbocalypse begins: Microsoft are reportedly closing or spinning off Double Fine, Ninja Theory and Compulsion

Xbox are reportedly closing or spinning off Psychonauts developers Double Fine, Hellblade studio Ninja Theory, and South of Midnight creators Compulsion Games, as Microsoft commence efforts to yet again "reset" their billion dollar gaming business after already laying off thousands of staff, cancelling games, and closing several studios over the past couple of years.

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Nvidia G-Sync Pulsar monitors can successfully beat biology to hone motion clarity in games - though they're not yet worth the price

Back when I first tried a G-Sync Pulsar monitor at an Nvidia shindig in February, I clung to the hope that maybe, finally, gaming display tech had made its first real breakthrough in years. Dozens, if not hundreds of samey screens would be revealed as incompetent fools in the searing light of Pulsar’s innovative genius; Nvidia’s own frame generation systems would weep in shame that they once tried to mock up the fluidity and motion clarity that Pulsar could deliver for real.

Now, I have one such Pulsar monitor – an identical 1440p, 360Hz Asus ROG Strix XG27AQNGV to the one from that demo – to test at length, and can at last say with certainty: yeah, s'alright. Pretty decent. Doesn’t make much of a difference in some games but it can look quite nice. Probably too expensive, mind. Why can’t I hear any weeping?

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