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.
