Gregorios Kythreotis, the creative director of sci-fi hoverbike adventure Sable, has a new thing. He's heading up a fresh studio dubbed Eteo, who'll be aiming to release their first game in 2027. Until then, the studio plan to start putting out a newsletter called Archetypes, which'll debut in January and discuss different elements of game design.
Access to Roblox has been blocked in Russia, with federal censorship and media oversight agency Roskomnadzor accusing the platform of distributing content "justifying terrorism" and spreading "LGBT propaganda". According to Russian media reports, the state body said Roblox has become rife with content that can "negatively impact the spiritual and moral development of children".
Hi-Fi Rush is ditching its Denuvo anti-tamper software as part of developers' Tango Gameworks transition to working under new owners Krafton. A fresh patch has been released swapping logos to reflect that switch in management, and you'll need to install it before mid-January if you want the game to stay playable.
Krafton, of course, bought up Tango after the studio's former parent company Microsoft announced plans to shut it down back in May, alongside Redfall developers Arkane Austin and Mighty Doom creators Alpha Dog Games.
I'll forgive you if you've not clocked The God Slayer. While it's always been vaguely curious in an Inside Baseball sort of way, its action-RPGness being a stark departure for My Time at Sandrock/My Time at Portia lifesim devs Pathea Games, the project's been in hiding since its 2023 reveal as an apparent PS5 exclusive. Yet it’s still in the works, release date TBD but with a PC version confirmed, and has successfully caught my eye after a hands-off preview session last week – even with said preview being shy about its most intriguing, immsim-influenced openness.
There are two Brendan Greene's (or PlayerUnknown's, however you prefer to refer to the game dev). There is the Brendan Greene who wants to listen to the feedback offered up by those partaking in the early access period of his current game, Prologue: Go Wayback. And there is the Brendan Greene who doesn't, for quite reasonable reasons. Both of these are still him, and both show up in a recent interview.
Grotesque and surreal 'farming simulation' Horses has been banned from the Epic Games Store on the eve of release, a couple of years after a work-in-progress version of the game was rejected by Valve. In an alleged statement to developers Santa Ragione, the Fortnite makers explain that they've found the game to be in contravention of policies against "Inappropriate Content" and "Hateful or Abusive Content". Given that, according to Santa Ragione, Epic have had access to a build for two months and had already approved the game for publication on their store 18 days before launch, the whole thing feels like a frantic response to Valve's claims about the unfinished build, which Epic presumably haven't seen.
Imagine a fantasy version of Ming dynasty China, suffering from a plague that slowly mutates infectees into avian-like creatures. Toss in a femme fatale named after the Chinese gods of death, more hard-as-nails enemies than you can shake a guandao at, and Soulslike vibes imitating the greats, and occasionally even surpassing them. This is Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, a game I loved - warts and all - purely on the strength of its level design.
An online co-op mod for very French and very puppety soulslike Lies of P has been released in alpha form. As of writing, it'll let you take on boss battles with a friend and its creators are hoping to offer full multplayer playthroughs similar to Elden Ring's brilliant seamless co-op mod further down the line.
Ubisoft's Splinter Cell remake has a new director who's served as its director before. David Grivel has returned to Ubisoft and take up the role he left when he departed the company in 2022, not long after being tapped as the remake's original director following its late 2021 announcement.
It is an incredibly difficult thing to sell someone on a game in just one sentence. What are you meant to focus on, genre, specific mechanics, an interesting element of the story? There's not a right answer! I'm not going to figure out a recipe for success right here and now, but what I can do is at least show you a single sentence that sold me on a game called Burden Street Station quite quickly: "A surreal, narrative adventure game where you shapeshift during conversations to uncover how God went missing."
Keep Driving captures the dream of a road trip, a coming of age experience where you’re finally able to start motoring around the world in your own set of wheels. Your sense of wonder’s still intact and each place you visit on brings fresh surprises.
But the game isn't a schmaltzy dip into wanderlust, or a blinkered memory of youth and a lack of responsibilities. Lurking in the background is the nervousness of inexperience, which transforms mundane tasks into nightmares you must overcome.
November is...done! The tawdry moveable feast that is Videogaming shudders and rolls beyond the canopy, out into the whitening dunes and fathoms of December. Now for revelry! Strike your trumpets! Blow your drums! Possibly the other way round! The folk of game development exit their wagons and sprint weeping amongst the dissipating trees. A bunch of narrative and game designers put on eight-inch stilettos and form a high-kicking cabaret line. The stilettos fly off and perforate Take-Two's entire executive board. A miracle! Saint CJ be praised!
So, an ambitious Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer mod called CyberMP has been in development for a little while now, and the folks behind it have just concluded its "most stable and successful" closed beta test yet. Tweaks to key elements like vehicle and player synchronisation, as well as a new interface and custom lobbies went down well with testers, while technical gremlins were minimal.
If this is your first time hearing about CyberMP, it's a project that's currently being worked on by a team of 10, having first come to prominence last summer. Its goal is to offer multi-person deathmatches and races to Cyberpunkers, rather than full GTA Online-style co-op missioning or gigging.
Dastardly December has done it again. Here I was having a nice time with November, joking about the time February tried to explain leap years to August, and the wintry month snuck up in my blindspot. Now December's in the house, kicking back on the sofa with its feet up on the table. At least it's brought a gift: the RPS Advent Calendar 2025, the list of our favourite games of the year.
With manufacturers looking to raise prices to fuel the AI age we’re sleepwalking blindly towards, Black Friday weekend might offer the last chance to save on PC hardware for a while.
I understand why walking sims aren't really a thing any more. Some of the earliest big names like Gone Home, Dear Esther, and arguably The Stanley Parable all came at a time where indie games were growing in popularity, but were still predominantly 2D. Something simple like a walking sim is obviously quite resourceful compared to contemporary AAA games, but now the indie scene has blown up to the point where mechanics-first genres like roguelikes are dominating. Except I like walking sims! So when a game like nophenia, a walking sim where you're a wolfgirl with a flip phone exploring different dream worlds, shows up, I'm going to pay attention.
Crikey, it's been a long time coming, but it looks like The Long Dark is finally coming to a close… next year. Up until earlier this week, the fifth and final episode of The Long Dark's Wintermute DLC was due to be released by the end of the year. As you've probably gathered, the end of the year is very close now, so as a result, episode five has been delayed, but it is a delay that at least comes with a concrete release date.
All that trouble going on with Monster Hunter Wilds aside, for a good long while now Capcom has been doing quite well for itself. Multiple quite well liked Resident Evil games, fresh new bits like Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess and the upcoming Pragmata, and even a few remasters, namely for the Ace Attorney games (throw a dog a bone and give us a new one of those, though Capcom), but also for series like Dead Rising that also haven't had a new entry in a while. Well, for now at least, as a new report suggests a new Dead Rising might be in our future.
Right now, Team Cherry's future is pretty unclear. There is some kind of Hollow Knight: Silksong DLC that'll be coming somewhere along the line, but understandably the developer is keeping their cards close to their chest in terms of what's actually next. They certainly do have some ideas on how they would expand Hollow Knight, i.e. by not making any direct sequels, much like how Silksong isn't one. But in a recent interview, Team Cherry spoke (ever so slightly) more openly about their own future and how the thing that might get in their way most is, well, death.
Black Friday weekend has arrived, and Walmart has a great PC build for newcomers to PC gaming at a steep discount.
After forgetting to change my alarm for the weekend, my Saturday has started far too early. I clearly don't respond well to surprise free time, as I spent the morning writing my will. Disappointingly, Co-op don't let you set challenges and riddles for bequestees. This oversight has dashed the mental image of my brother and sister duelling over my gaming PC, armed with those Gladiators-style padded polearms that look like oversized cotton wool buds.
Pre-release builds of Fallout: New Vegas recently unearthed at a shop in Utah contain rare files which could be "incredibly useful" to expanding what modders can do with the RPG. Well, at least they doe in the estimation of the folks who claim to have found them, a group of preservationists whose current online presence only looks to have popped up last month.
I’m trying something new for this year’s Black Friday coverage: drastically overestimating how long it would take to put together a guide to its best graphics card deals. How is it past 11 already. Still, I do hope this helps any potential upgrader or from-scratch DIY builder out there – GPUs haven’t been 'cheap' in years, and while RAM is currently doing its best to replace them as the most overpriced component type in PCdom, graphics cards are usually in drastic need of discounts. Just as, like, their default state of being.
A trademark for Control Resonant has been applied for in Europe by a law firm who've represented Alan Wake developers Remedy on numerous previous occasions. This application's been lodged not long before The Game Awards and is to permit the phrase to be used in relation to games, but at the moment it's still a mystery what exact sort of Control-related thing it refers to.
Valve have blocked card game Flick Solitaire from the Russian version of Steam, after federal censorship body Roskomnadzor contacted the platform holder to order its removal for "promoting non-traditional sexualities".
In a letter, Valve have also reproached developers Flick Games for failing "to do your due diligence regarding where your game is allowed to be distributed, and to inform us of any territory where it cannot be". Flick Solitaire is still available in Russia via the iOS and Android storefronts, however, despite Roskomnadzor sending similar notes to Apple and Google. As of writing, Valve appear to be the only platform who have caved to Russian state requests to censor the game.
World of Warcraft's Midnight expansion finally has a full release date. It'll arrive on March 2nd, 2026, setting in stone the new player housing that's debuting in early access this December and bringing forth the bunch of other changes planned alongside its main invasion storyline.
That list of changes includes the introduction of a new premium currency call Hearthsteel, which you'll need top use to buy a "small fraction" of the house-related bits and bobs being added in with Midnight. Why? Reasons, Blizzard have said.
Animal Crossing… in space! That is what Young Suns, the latest game from Goodbye Volcano High, Depanneur Nocturne, and GNOG developer KO_OP Mode, appears to be when put reductively. But let's not put it reductively, because while this is one of those cozy life-sims, it does sound like it has something going on for it, particularly for the more revolutionary of you out there.
It is not exactly a secret that, in recent years, Destiny 2 hasn't been doing so hot. Frequenters of the pseudo-MMO have found certain expansions and updates to be disappointing, and for a live service game a few too many disappointments can be devastating. Now, in a new interview, the game's director Tyson Green has acknowledged how the game is struggling to bring in a new audience, and discussed the difficulties that come with that.
Embracer Group's undoing of their catastrophic multiple-year acquisition spree continues with the sale of Cryptic Studios and Arc Games, respectively the developers and publishers of Star Trek Online and Neverwinter.
Warframe devs Digital Extremes have launched a Founders program for their faded dark fantasy action-RPG Soulframe. This means that you can now pay to get access to the work-in-progress game, rather than signing up for a chance of a free code. What’s more, you can now wishlist it on Steam ahead of the eventual final release, inasmuch as a steadily updated gameworld like this ever reaches completion. There are always more layers to the setting, and more rad shoulderpads to unearth from the depths.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach has been listed for PC, bringing closer the moment in which you and I can learn why exactly Troy Baker is a glam rocker, why Mad Max director George Miller (it's not actually him) has a cat demon, and why Turkish-German screenwriter Fatih Akin has become a living doll. Sony have yet to announce the PC version of Hideo Kojima's open world courier fantasy or give it a release date, but the Entertainment Software Rating Board have a page up now. Go on, Sony - call them liar liar, pants on fire.
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I’m relatively new to the Mount and Blade series and its medieval warlord roleplaying in a siege-heavy sandbox. That said, it’s not taken me long to find its rhythm. The world is a constantly bubbling cauldron of small skirmishes and big battles. The nations that dot the continent of Calradia throw untold numbers of bodies at their neighbours with the goal of expanding their land. It’s an orgy of violence that’s often charming in the ways it can be slightly wooden or how you can feel the combat simulation creak under the weight of swordsmen you're trying to sic on a settlement or castle wall.
Far Cry is set to be turned into a live-action TV series on FX, something Ubisoft reportedly let slip back in August, but has now been formally announced by the publisher in a post that's yet to be randomly zapped into the ether.
Look, I have my fair share of problems with Palworld, but to give credit where credit is due, after announcing their foray into publishing earlier this year, they've lined up a suite of games. Dead Take, a psychological horror complete with Baldur's Gate 3's Neil Newbon and Final Fantasy 16's Ben Starr, launched earlier this year, Truckful just looks like a delight, and now there's Vision Quench, a game for freaks like me who like it when fantasy gets a bit techy.
Right, time for some box news. The Steam Machine. Valve have confirmed, or reaffirmed, that its yet-to-be-revealed price will be in line with a regular PC built to similar specs, rather than subsidised in order to try and compete with consoles.
Well, that was quick. Season two of Prime Video's Fallout show is still weeks away from arriving on December 17th, but a group of modders have wasted no time in studying its latest trailer and taking a crack at adding the NCR ranger power armour shown off to Fallout 4.
Can't take a break and wait for the anniversary update's fallout to totally dissipate when there's a modathon on, I guess.
November is... merry! As the great grim centipede of people and property that is Videogaming continues its progress of the midnight wood, a dozen auteur designers from theatre backgrounds don coxcomb hats and sequined codpieces. They climb onto carts and stage a chariot race, beating each other with bladders decorated to look like Roger Ebert. There is laughter up and down the train. Meanwhile, the industry seers and marketing-mancers have received hopeful tidings from their friends among the owls and bats. The trees are thinning out ahead. The stars can sometimes be seen. There is wild talk that third-person cover shooters are about to come back into fashion.
That isn't all the owls and bats have seen, however. As the path curves, we find ourselves in the courtyard of a squat and forbidding tower. Five levels of blood-flecked obsidian and pixelated braziers, each named for a day of the week, each infested by perfectly terrifying new PC games. Never mind that the edifice has clearly been slapped together using assets lifted from a webinar. Never mind that you can see fuchsia checkerboards everywhere. The tower's frightful denizens must be defeated - or possibly even bought - if the convoy is to proceed.
Sundays are for turning finally accepting it’s become Big Coat Weather by stripping off the nine-month-old dry cleaning plastic sheath from said Big Coat, slipping into the sleeves, and exhaling a relieved sigh upon discovering it still fits. Not this year, Popeyes Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Not this year.
Gosh, can you believe it? It's already the 35th anniversary of Ruin! It came out before I was born, but even I'm feeling the passage of time with this one. With such a momentous occasion upon us, a special 35th anniversary edition of the legendary RPG has been released by its developer Official Electric, split across just four floppy disks… except, well, you've definitely already clocked that Ruin isn't quite real. At least not in the way it's been presented.
Let's get something real clear here right off the bat: I couldn't possibly tell you if Team Cherry are planning to make any more Hollow Knight games. That isn't to say there isn't more Hollow Knight on the way, as Silksong will be getting… something, at some point, in the future. However! Studio heads William Pellen and Ari Gibson have at least floated a hypothetical idea around how the world of Hollow Knight might get bigger.
I think miHoYo might just have a bit too much money. Somehow, they have yet another game on the way called Varsapura, yet another anime-looking, open-world action game, this time by way of psychic mishappenings. As many have pointed out, there's a vague Control-like quality to it, at least in its newly shown off, lengthy gameplay demo.
It's been 10 years since Fatshark's Warhammer Tide years kicked off, starting with Warhammer: End times - Vermintide, and to celebrate that anniversary the developer has been offering up various in-game events and updates in both Vermintide 2 and Darktide. Earlier this week Vermintide 2 received a free new level, a point we'll come back to, but the big thing you should know first is that you can pick up the co-op dark fantasy game for free on Steam right now, and keep it forever.
Saturdays are for trying to befriend the local foxes. There are a bunch living under the hedge by the flat. I saw a big fat fox sitting in the road this week, like a cross between a rising bollard and a garden gnome. I wonder if I can entice them into gathering outside my window with slices of Hovis. Anyway - any weekend plans? Here's what we're clicking on.
It's fair to say Fallout 4's anniversary update's earned some stick due to effect it had on PC mods, just like the RPG's next-gen update did before it. Lots of works needed updating, and while that happened pretty quickly in a number of cases, there was still disruption for some additions that generally feel a lot more necessary over on console.
Enter modding platform Nexus Mods, who've decided to follow-up the update by putting together their own "anniversary collection" of Fallout 4 mods from the works they host, with hopes it'll serve as a free alternative aimed at celebrating ten years of the RPG being modded.
"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you - no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun," sing David Gilmour and Richard Wright in Pink Floyd's "Time". I once thought that song was about mortality and the necessity of carpeing that diem, but it turns out Pink Floyd were stealthily pitching the core concept for Erosion, an open world roguelike shooter from Plot Twist in which the world advances one decade when you die.
The core mechanics are all there in the song: running, gunning, time-shifting, the lack of explicit hand-holding expected of an open worldo. The pitch has evolved over the (argh) half-century since "Time", admittedly. Pink Floyd make no mention of the post-apocalyptic wild west in their lyrics, for example, nor do they pack in any high stakes poker games or the prospect of being eaten by sandworms.
Ho there, embarrassing Baldur's Gate 3 fans! Not had enough D&D in your life lately? Pining for the Owlbears, is it? Feeling a bit shrivelled for lack of magic missiles? Baby want some Helldusk Armor? Perhaps you will be consoled by Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked. It's a Forgotten Realms-themed adaptation of Resolution's Demeo, a co-op tactical RPG co-created by former Left 4 Dead developer Mike Booth, which is itself a homage to tabletop.
Here's a sentence I am very glad to write: the first Citizen Sleeper-like is here! Or at least the first one I'm aware of (and the actual genre is dice-driven RPG, no more something-likes, ok?). It's called Dusk Punk, which mixes the narrative and mechanical framework established by Citizen Sleeper with the aesthetics and world of games like Dishonored, and it's out today.
It's been tradition for as long as anyone can remember, that the team at RPS ends the year by choosing their favourite 24 games from the preceding 12 months. In December, we reveal our picks day-by-day. We call this the RPS Advent Calendar.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is getting another new class, revealed last night as the Hive Scum. They’re a suitably skull-adorned outlaw who can dual-wield guns or shivs, while indulging in a cheeky bit of chemical warfare by homebrewing stimulants and lacing their weapons with harmful chems. Basically the opposite of the space-narc Arbites class added this summer, then: they got exploding dogs, the Hive Scum gets exploding drugs.
The Rock Paper Shotgun CMS groaned like a harpooned whale when I fed the above game title into our database. I was tempted to shave away some punctuation for the benefit of whoever writes about this game next, but then I remembered that I hate everybody here as I do hell, all Montagues, and thee. Anyway, what a title. It's like Type Moon and Kingdom Hearts fell into a cyberpunk snakepit.
I don't even know what half the characters are called. They appear malevolently polarised, pushing other letters away from them. They seem... primordial somehow. Our distant ancestors used to hack brackets like those into the walls of caverns, when they wished to add inessential tips about flint storage to paintings of hunters getting tusked by mammoths.
