"We tried something different": Looking back on SiN Episodes: Emergence, the Valve-backed shooter that tried and failed to kick off an age of episodic gaming

On May 10, 2006, Ritual Entertainment released SiN Episodes: Emergence, the first of nine episodes set in the sci-fi megalopolis of Freeport City. Backed by Valve and launched on Steam just a month before Valve's own Half-Life 2: Episode 1, the game felt like it was the start of something new. Ritual even had Gabe Newell singing their significance, saying in Emergence's launch day press release that "With the release of SiN Episodes: Emergence Ritual is leading the industry's long overdue migration to producing episodic content."

Valve famously released just two Half-Life episodes before stalling. Ritual only ever managed one.

But, as I learned when talking to some of its creators, SiN Episodes: Emergence is much more than a hiccup in the history of gaming, it was a title torn between the old publishing traditions of the 90s and newly emerging technologies of the 00s. They also told me about the time they "faked the shit out of" all the screenshots for a PC Gamer exclusive.

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are, and apologies in advance for the less-fun-than-average intro, for peeling back the layers of the smelly legal onion that is scattering pet ashes in the UK. The government’s Regulatory Position Statement (or RPS – no relation) suggests this is only easily done on property you already own, which makes things tricky for my flat leasehold – if you’re unfamiliar with this term, it’s a bit like what Steam is to games, in that I don’t technically own jack shit. My willingness to sneakily spread Roxy, who I’m more pleased to report went to sleep while blissfully stoned, across a nearby garden has also been sapped by the knowledge that ashes are highly alkaline, and could thus kill weaker plants and grasses. Shame, really. She loved destroying things.

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AlteredBlood+ is a movement shooter set at the end of the universe where the key to survival is soaking up your enemies' blood

The year is 3232 CE, a "self-replicating megastructure" named MOTHER is launched into the centre of space. Fast forward to the year 4,199,245,344,263,242,348,389,893,582,349,373 CE (no I'm not joking), and MOTHER has "consumed 99.99999997% of the Observable Universe." What's left of humanity hangs on in that tiny percentage that hasn't be consumed, which is where you, a Reaper, a creation of MOTHER's, steps in as part of AlteredBlood+, a movement-FPS platformer where the blood of your enemies is your strength. Also you're a furry!

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Europa Universalis 5's latest patch notes took up 72 pages on a Google Doc so I think it might be a big one

The latest patch for Europa Universalis 5 dropped earlier this week. Numbered 1.2 and titled Echinades, it is the game's "biggest update yet," as true a sounding statement as can be given that the patch notes come out to apparently 72 pages in a Google Doc. I don't have time to read all of that! So I won't, but I will tell you about the highlights kindly outlined by Paradox Tinto that feature in this update.

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Psychonauts developer Double Fine are the latest Microsoft-owned studio to unionise

Some good news for the day: indie developer behind the cult classic psychic platformer Psychonauts and more Double Fine are unionising. As spotted by Aftermath, a petition was filed by the Microsoft-owned studio to the National Labor Relations board on May 7th, and are doing so with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), following suit from a number of other developers owned by the tech giant.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

I really thought I'd be done with the decorating this week, but it continues. I have at least got all of the cabinets back on the walls, the larder unit painted and assembled, and regained ready access to the fridge. No more cheese sandwiches for a while, I pray. I'm in the last stretch. I need to touch up all the paintwork where I've left fingerprints and scratches, screw on all the door knobs, and then clean away all the paint stains on the floor and countertops.

I am so close to having a kitchen I can cook in again. I can almost taste it.

But, enough about my slow decorating, let's talk videogames. What are the team playing this weekend?

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Give yourself vampirism with a mortar and pestle in Dracula: The Disciple, an alchemist's castle puzzler from Styx devs Cyanide

Many are those who stray before Vlad the Impaler seeking eternal life as a vampire. Poor, ignorant cattle! Immortality is a goblet of ashes, a bouquet of thorns, an endless stairway among the fading portraits of bygone loves. Besides, you have to solve a bunch of alchemy puzzles first, and if I'm interpreting the announcement materials for Dracula: The Disciple correctly, you might only get halfway there and transform into a normal dude with a gross undead hand.

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Still hoping to snag a Steam Controller after it sold out? You'll have to literally join a queue to get one

Been a bit of a week for the Steam Controller, 'ey? It launched earlier this week sans console, only for Valve and everyone else to find that it pretty much immediately sold out. Tech scarcity? Who could have seen that one coming, even for something as simple as a controller! That then resulted in some naughty people flogging them on eBay for at least double the price, but worry not intrepid purchaser, for Valve have shared details on how they plan to dole out the controller going forward.

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The World of Darkness grows bigger with a first look at Hunter: The Reckoning - Deathwish and a Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Rageborn reveal

Lucky you! You've got a look at two World of Darkness games in one today (that's the Vampire: The Masquerade universe, for those asking). First is one we already knew about, Hunter: The Reckoning - Deathwish (is it also a World of Darkness requirement for the secondary subtitle to always be followed by a hyphen?), which received less of a gameplay deep dive and more of a light splash. The second is the reveal of Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Rageborn (see what I mean?), a metroidvania where, as the name suggests, you're a werewolf!

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Who owns the Wizardry RPGs? We do, say both Drecom and Atari as an unusual IP acquisition splits custody of the genre-forming series

Foundational RPG series Wizardry has, over forty years since helping to codify the roleplaying videogame, found itself torn between present-day custodians. Atari announced yesterday that they’d acquired the rights to the first five Wizardry games, as well as "their underlying IP," and said they’d be re-releasing those five on modern platforms. This morning, however, Japanese publishers Drecom – who bought Wizardry’s copyright and trademark rights in 2020 – tXeeted that contrary to certain reports on Atari’s acquisition, it was they who’d continue to own and manage the intellectual property in the future.

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Like fleshy, diaper-wearing cars, infants in The Sims 4 have been "tuned up", making them faster to feed and change, and it's easier to clean up their poop

I've never been into a pediatrician's office to confirm this, but I've always suspected that in the centre of the room there's a concrete trench beneath a metal lift. It just stands to reason that when an infant goes in for a check up, they're plonked down on the metal frame, raised up two or three feet before the doctor goes down into the trench to inspect the baby's fleshy chassis from below. Maxis have only poured petrol on my suspicion thanks to a section in The Sims patch notes titled: 'Infant tuning'.

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Stranger than Heaven, out this winter, sees the Yakuza devs blend Snoop Dogg into a musical adventure/Tojo Clan origin story that looks fascinatingly quirky

Right. So. Stranger Than Heaven, the Like A Dragon/Yakuza devs' hop through different decades of 20th century Japanese history? Snoop Dogg's in it. And, also, it's telling the story of how the Tojo Clan - the famous yakuza group Kazuma Kiryu belongs to - came to be founded. Oh, and it'll have you wandering around town sampling the sounds of brooms sweeping and steam trains chugging so that you can turn these into symphonies, as you plunge headlong into a career in band management.

All of that and more has just been shown off in a fresh look at the game, which is out this winter.

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MindsEye studio Build a Rocket Boy reportedly lay off around two thirds of 250 remaining staff following release of sabotage mission

MindsEye developers Build a Rocket Boy (BARB) have reportedly laid off around 170 of their remaining 250 staff in yet another round of cuts. The move leaves them with a studio of approximately 80 people following the release of an in-game mission which alludes to the alleged "sabotage" BARB CEO Mark Gerhard claims the game faced around its initial release.

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Dead as Disco is out in early access to fill the Hi-Fi Rush and, weirdly, Batman: Arkham series shaped hole in your heart

At this point in time, even if Tango Gameworks were ultimately saved, there's no telling when we might get a new Hi-Fi Rush game. I'd like it to be soon! That thing is the definition of a perfect 7/10 (I will not be reading any commentary on this oxymoronic statement). Alas, I shall have to continue waiting, but there seems to be a solid entry in the action rhythm genre out today in early access in the form of Dead as Disco.

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Choose between Buddhist Star Trek, rad vinyl music, and forest fire deathgames in this week's PC releases

How dare you condemn me without knowing the facts! SHUT UP – I'm having a rhetorical conversation with myself. True, there was no new PC game round-up post yesterday, which might be offered as evidence that somebody forgot to write one, but you have no proof, no proof whatsoever that this wholly speculative 'forgetful RPS editor' was me. Also true: I've written 99% of the previous round-ups, but this guarantees nothing, for as David Hume reminds us in A Treatise of Human Nature, our minds are ill-equipped to identify relationships between past and future experience; all we have is the appearance of events following each other.

As such, the list of PC games below is but a sputtering of alienated atoms across the endless instant of ineffability. My memory informs me that PC games were released last week, and there appear to be more being released this week, but to argue for some kind of causal 'trend' would be buffoonish - and you, my dear friend, are no buffoon, or you wouldn't be even now writing a comment about why my reading of Humean skepticism is pretentious and incorrect. Onward!

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"We want to ensure gamers are part of those conversations": Stop Killing Games launch player advocacy group to lobby the UK government

The Stop Killing Games campaign announced plans to set up some non-governmental organisations earlier this year, with the aim of ensuring their work goes beyond a current push to prevent online games being rendered unplayable when publishers shut down their servers. One of these regional advocacy groups has now launched in the UK, going by the name Gamers’ Voice.

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Space Hauler is a full scale space flight sim set around Saturn where every single button in your ship is functional

I do love a bit of space exploration in games, there's something quite beautiful about the infinite openness, alongside having a terrifying primal fear quality. The peacefulness is often the important thing for me though, and the upcoming cargo delivery sim Space Hauler looks like it will, uh, deliver on that front.

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"It meant we got the design right": Resident Evil Requiem's producer on the DLSS5 Grace Ashcroft debacle

Back in March, Nvidia revealed unto the world DLSS5, the next version of its upscaling and frame generation tech. It was ugly as sin, turning Resident Evil Requiem's Grace Ashcroft into, in the words of our own James, yassified Instagram models. The response from developers and onlookers alike was overwhelmingly negative, but of course Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang didn't see it that way (he's still wrong, by the way). Yet amongst the mess is a glass half full outlook from Requiem's producer, Masato Kumzawa.

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Crimson Desert's latest patch will help with your post-game buff build boredom through boss fight do-overs and more

A slightly strange aspect of Crimson Desert thus far has been that the more you get through it, the more enemies you beat, and the less enemies you actually have to fight. It's been a contentious point for some who want to test out their buff boy end-game builds and only have hot air to slice at. All is not lost, however! As the latest update for the RPG has introduced some handy features that will let you experiment with these builds.

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Wolfenstein meets Metroidvania in Wolfhound, an 8-bit ode to yesteryear with zombies and Nazi mechs

Wolfhound is a game that I've kept my eyes on for quite some time, listing it on both our 2025 and 2026 most anticipated lists. While an exact release date for this retro-inspired indie is still forthcoming, indications hint that it may arrive at the tail end of this year, and a build that I've recently played provided more reasons to be excited.

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for walking past a minivan full of Toy Story merchandise with purple, green and white livery and knowing, knowing in your marrow that the owner has named it "Bus Lightyear". These are uncertain times, but any universe capable of materialising the concept of "Bus Lightyear" can't be entirely beyond redemption. Anyway, here's some stuff I've read this week.

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I tested the MSI Cyborg 14 gaming laptop by carrying it for 105 miles through the mountains of Wales

A little while ago our deputy editor James 'RAM-bo' Archer said he wanted us all to get more involved with hardware criticism, because we all appear to think that videogames are powered by telluric currents and swearing. He offered me specifically the chance to write about a laptop - the relatively affordable (I stress, "relatively") MSI Cyborg 14, loaned to RPS for a few weeks by Swipe Right PR.

It was a grievous imposition, dealt out by somebody I had thought a friend. I do need a gaming laptop, and I am interested in the monstrous convolutions of the hardware industry, but I'm not really your guy for hot chat about keyboard depth and graphics card benchmarking. I care about that stuff a lot less than, to pick an example at random, climbing mountains. By happy coincidence, when James came knocking I was about to go on a 105 mile hike through the Eryri national park in Wales, including an ascent of Yr Wydffa, Britain's second highest peak. The compromise was as obvious as it was irresistable: I would attempt to review the MSI Cyborg 14 while hiking up Welsh mountains.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

Due to work and a press trip, I am still only half way through redecorating the kitchen. The walls are now a lovely shade of terracotta, but dust sheets cover the floor, there are no doors on the cabinets, and paint pots and stained brushes litter the room. I just want to cook a meal on the hob. A single delicious hot meal.

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Kingdom Come devs respond to Lord of the Rings game rumour: "I cannot disclose details but I can tell it is a huge, immersive RPG"

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 developers Warhorse Studios are refusing to confirm or deny a rumour that they're making a Lord of the Rings game for Embracer. This could indicate one of two things: firstly, they are making a Lord of the Rings game for Embracer. And secondly, they are not making a Lord of the Rings game for Embracer. We can rest assured, at least, that they're making a "huge, immersive RPG", in the words of content director Ondrej Bittner. Huge AND immersive? Sounds like Orc mischief to me.

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A plumber's worst nightmare and man's best friend combine in the Journey-sounding social platformer pipedog

When naming literally anything, great consideration should be taken in the act of doing so. It's the first scene setter, and a bad name can make you click away quite easily in this fast paced digital age. Yet there I was, humbly scrolling through Social Media Name, when I saw it: pipedog. It's pipedog! It is exactly what it says on the tin, and nothing more.

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Vampire: The Masquerade finds new undead life in Oaths and Ashes, a visual novel RPG set in Berlin

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 might be what it is (a bit of a mess), but that doesn't mean the series is dead in the water. In fact, a whole new game is on the way! It's called Vampire: The Masquerade - Oaths and Ashes, and it is still technically an RPG, just one mixed up The Fly style with a visual novel.

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Greedfall studio Spiders' liquidation is a "premeditated and deliberate choice by Nacon’s management" claim union as they call for a boycott

Following confirmation that Greedfall 2 developers Spiders are being liquidated, the French Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV) union have issued a statement claiming that the studio's fate is "a premeditated and deliberate choice by Nacon’s management". They've also called for a boycott of the publisher.

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Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era hits early access today with the start of a narrative campaign, six factions, a map editor and multiplayer

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is out in early access today, April 30th. It's taken just over a decade for Might & Magic Heroes VII to get a mailine follow-up that'll keep things heroic, mighty, and strategic, with Hooded Horse/Ubisoft-backed devs Unfrozen doing the honours.

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Following in Fallout's footsteps, British post-apocalyptic survival jaunt Atomfall's now getting a TV show too

Well, this is a nice suprise. Just a couple of weeks on from me revisiting it to check out the DLC it'd gotten since my review run, Rebellion have announced that their Cumbrian post-apocalyptic survior Atomfall's being adapted into a TV show.

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American Truck Simulator cruises into Illinois with a fresh expansion releasing mid-May, as SCS also tease a new truck

Fresh off adding a new feature that'll make my reckless driving a bit easier to recover from, SCS Software have announced a release date for American Truck Simulator's next expansion, as the game continues its trek from US west coast to East. Illinois is the latest destination and you'll be able to take to its highways on May 14th.

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Cyberpunk 2077 gets a whole new ending thanks to a mod aimed at folks keen on riding off into the sunset with potential partner Judy Alvarez

I'd class few of Cyberpunk 2077's endings as unflinchingly happy, most are at least a bit bittersweet - as you might expect, given the grave situation the game's protagonist finds themselves in. If you've ever wished the one added with the Phantom Liberty DLC was a tad more upbeat or wanted a conclusion that sees V run off with braindance-programming love interest Judy Alvarez, you're in luck, as a veteran Cyberpunk modder's now brought that to life.

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Solve a murder mystery by flying people around on your giant crane in the Disco Elysium and Chinese folktale inspired The Crane Rider's Tale

Nothing will put me on to a game quicker than having a concept so laser-focused on the thing it's trying to do, and, seemingly, doing it well. This is the case for The Crane Rider's Tale, the next game from the developer of Butterfly Soup, a visual novel/adventure game hybrid that takes cues from Disco Elysium and Zero Escape where a serial killer is on the loose who has killed your friend, so you ferry around your local townsfolk around on your giant crane to figure out who did it, all wrapped up in a medieval Chinese painting and woodblock print aesthetic. It is so much, and so much my exact vibe.

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The War to End all Wars is a colony sim now, with an Acceptable Losses gauge

If Dig In were called a 'historical wave defence strategy base-builder' or similar I wouldn't have been jarred by it. Odds are I'd have skimmed right past. Instead, Icelandic developers Vitar Games are calling it "a WW1 trench warfare colony sim", and this wigs me out a little. We are colonising the Somme! Nothing is too sacred for artistic depiction, and people have been commodifying memories of the World Wars for decades, but throwing in an ultra-compacted gravitational mass of a concept like "colony" really turns it all up to 11/11.

It's a gift to cultural essayists. Within the combinatory logics of Steam, it's also a harbinger for such genres as the "WW1 life sim" or even "cosy WW1". I am trying to imagine what Wilfred Owen might have written about bladder gauges. Here is a trailer.

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"This isn’t just something that affects Wizards of the Coast" - Magic: the Gathering Arena team vote to unionise for protection against layoffs, genAI and forced crunch

Magic: The Gathering Arena developers at Wizards of the Coast are set to unionise with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The CWA say they've secured a "supermajority" in favour of unionisation among the workers, and have given Wizards of the Coast until the end of the week to voluntarily recognise the union - dubbed United Wizards of the Coast—CWA - and filed an election petition with the US National Labor Relations Board.

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This beefy 850W Asus ROG Strix 80+ Platinum PSU is a third off from Amazon

Just like the 'Apple tax' of a certain phone and laptop manufacturer, the 'ROG tax' is an increasingly well-established concept in PC hardware circles; Asus' components do often carry a bit of a premium to them, for various reasons. Nonetheless, Amazon UK currently have a decent deal on the 850W 80+ Platinum ROG Strix PSU, taking it down to £120. That's the lowest price it's ever been, by the looks of price tracking graphs, and a tasty 33% saving on its £180 RRP.

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Alien Isolation 2 teaser video shows the horror game heading planetside, but those panic-inducing save stations are following it

It's been well over a year since the announcement of Alien: Isolation 2, or whatever Creative Assembly and Sega end up calling the sequel to 2014's xenomorph horror romp. There's been no further word about the game, and the protracted quiet may have given you a false sense of security. "False Sense Of Security", by happy coincidence, is the title of a spooky new video just uploaded to the Alien: Isolation Youtube channel.

True, there are no Aliens in the footage, and they don't explicitly label it "Alien: Isolation 2" or similar. It could be wholly unrelated! In much the same way that a rogue dot on your motion tracker is probably just a cat trapped in a locker. Go on, then. Open your locker.

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for realising that you aren't who you thought you were. You thought you were Jonathan Frakes. You thought you'd starred in both Star Trek: The Next Generation and 1995 video game Multimedia Celebrity Poker. You thought you'd played an unnamed dug dealer in a 1982 Hill Street Blues episode named 'Of Mouse and Man'. You thought you'd directed an episode of Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce called 'Rule No. 155: Go with the Magician'. You thought a man named Trim Jinca had used your face as a profile picture a time or two. You were wrong on all counts.

You are Jonathan Frakes. But not that Jonathan Frakes. You don't ask the questions here. You answer them. And so I ask: who are you?

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ShatterRush is obviously an indie take on Titanfall, but considering the lack of threequel, I'm sure you won't mind

There is a Titanfall-shaped hole in this world that could be filled by Respawn, yet won't be, for silly reasons like money. I hate money! It is a scourge we must do away with. Until that point, we could of course moan and lament the absence of a Titanfall 3. That sounds quite dull, so instead I will point you towards ShatterRush, a game that is oh so evidently picking up what Titanfall 2 left behind, and adding into the mix some fresh elements of its own.

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After losing its creative director, it looks like Assassin's Creed Hexe has lost its game director now too

Welp, the game Assassin's Creed Hexe may have been a few months ago probably won't be the game it will be. Back in February, the still quite mysterious Hexe lost its creative director, Clint Hocking. Now it appears that the game has also lost its game director, Benoit Richer.

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Final Fantasy 14's next expansion ushers in an ice age and adds in an Evangelion crossover for good measure

It is happening again. By that I mean Final Fantasy 14 is getting a new expansion, once again ensuring my timeline will be flooded with thousands of screenshots of tall bunny women and regular sized cat boys. It's called Evercold this time around, seemingly bringing about a cold snap to Eorzea, if the lengthy teaser trailer is anything to go by. The new overarching storyline started with the previous expansion, Dawntrail, has a name now too: the Godless Realms Saga. Sounds cosy!

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I’ve accidentally drilled a hole in my desk with Logitech’s RS H-Shifter, but it’s given me a new appreciation for slamming up the gears

I’m sitting in the pit lane at Donington Park circuit.

My car’s a 1992 Mercedes 190E Evo 2, a blocky German touring car ideal for close-quarters racing. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get it into first gear. You see, while the new Logitech RS H-pattern gear shifter I’ve been testing out has proven easy to set up with 99% of my racing library, introducing it to Raceroom Racing Experience has proven a bit more eventful.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

This weekend, the decorating begins. Yes, I have bitten off more than I can chew, but what is life if not enthusiastically inviting choking hazards? I'll be removing cabinets, sanding and priming carpentry, cleansing walls with sugar soap, and, if I've done everything, covering the kitchen in B&Q's Chorizo matte emulsion paint.

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Don't miss The Third Shift, a Game Boy horror museum that cleverly entangles Resident Evil-style CCTV perspectives with point-and-click investigation

The most horrifying thing that ever happened to me while playing Game Boy was a school 'friend' flicking the power switch while getting off the train, just as I'd finally beaten that one maddeningly obscure block puzzle in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. He's lucky he's not buried somewhere under the railway lines between Shipley and Baildon. There were Game Boy horror games, but they were mostly crammed-down approximations of Resident Evil and the like, and I found them about as spooky as a frowning Potato Head. The Third Shift is out to address this lapse, and so far, it is doing it extremely well.

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Leaked Xbox Game Pass Starter Edition looks to bundle a small library of games with your Discord Nitro membership

Days after announcing a price cut for the existing Xbox Game Pass tiers, which'll no longer get new Call of Duty games at launch, it appears Microsoft have an all-new tier lurking up their sleeves. Dubbed Game Pass Starter Edition, leaks suggest it'll be something akin to the the established baseline Essential Game Pass tier, but bundled in with a paid subscription to Discord Nitro.

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Shapez 2 leaves the factory floor today as it launches into 1.0

I delight in looking at shapes, I suspect we all do. They are the building blocks of life, often turned into literal building blocks handed to us as wee babes to help us make sense of the world. Games like Shapez 2, then, feel like a natural through line from this point, a mechanical orchestra that lets you put all sorts of shapes together to build factories that produce more shapes endlessly. And now that line has seen its end, as Shapez 2 has left early access today, arriving at its 1.0 release a little less than two years on from its original launch.

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£69 for one of my favourite wireless office mice is quite the steal

I've used Logitech's MX Master office mice for the best part of six years by this point, beginning with the MX Master 3, then the 3S and now the MX Master 4. Weirdly, the best one to pick up from a value and features standpoint is the MX Master 3S, which I noted in my original 2022 review to have the same excellent ergonomics as its predecessor, versatile wireless connectivity, a zippy 8000 DPI sensor and much more. For £69 from Amazon (nice), it's a return to one of the best prices I've seen on this rodent in a few weeks and in a general sense.

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"Unlocked the toilet door in the Euro Trash mission to prevent soft-locks" read Samson's latest patch notes, which also introduce special drift cars

If you've spent days trapped in a loo after Samson cheekly locked you in one during a mission, then I bring good news. Liquid Swords' latest patch for their buggy crime sim's freed you from your bondage, while also adding some new tuned cars for you to race around while you celebrate no longer being stuck in the shitter.

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Crimson Desert's latest patch adds new difficulty options, lets you adopt a pet bird, and unglues cats from shoulders

Another Crimson Desert patch is upon us, with developers Pearl Abyss delivering more of the additions they outlined earlier this month. Though, they didn't get as deep into specifics on the likes of new difficulty settings and extra pets back then as they have in their latest notes, which also run down a raft of fixes for the red pudding.

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Adding naval warfare in time for Crusader Kings 3's Silk and Silver expansion would have blown Paradox's "schedule out of [the] water"

Naval warfare won't be coming to Crusader Kings 3 with the big merchant republics expansion Paradox are set to roll out towards the end of this year. The studio say that they want to make sure they do sea battles justice, and so didn't want to shoehorn them into a DLC which already comes with "a fair amount of risk", while also blowing up their planned development timeline.

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Steam, Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite risk "becoming onramps to abuse, extremist violence, radicalisation or lifelong harm", claim Australian government

Valve, Epic Games, Microsoft, and the Roblox Corporation have all been issued transparency notices by the Australian government's eSafety commissioner, with the body seeking to learn what steps are being taken to keep kids safe on Steam, Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox. The Australian government say this step's been taken as without action, all four platforms risk "becoming onramps to abuse, extremist violence, radicalisation or lifelong harm".

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