Sometimes I feel that my taste in media is a bit hard to pin down, given that I like shows like Twin Peaks and manga like Chainsaw Man, two series where their similarities mostly stop and start at featuring governmental figures. Enter Green Suits, a game whose dev describes it as those two things fused together, throwing in JRPGs, platforming, and a "drama-based combat system," to make a concoction that feels catered to me personally.
Nah. Nope. I'm good, thanks. None of those are exactly what former Archetype Entertainment studio head and BioWare veteran James Ohlen said when Hasbro asked him if he fancied making a Baldur's Gate 4, but they essentially capture the jist. Despite having worked on the RPG series before, the former boss behind upcoming sci-fi RPG Exodus wasn't keen in picking up the baton Larian had tossed aside, mainly because trying to live up to the expectations their last work set would be a hugely daunting task.
A Californian bill aiming to force publishers shutting down servers for online games to provide a version of the game players can keep on playing independently of said servers or issue full refunds has failed to pass a committee vote in the state's senate. That means the bill's march through the legislature, which has been backed by the wider Stop Killing Games campaign, has come to a relative standstill for now.
Chip makers Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have been accused of fixing RAM prices and supply, thereby exacerbating the effects of the ongoing memory crisis, in a US class action lawsuit. According to the suit, the trio have co-ordinated their pivots from focusing on making the sort of RAM consumer tech needs to the high bandwidth memory typically used by AI datacentres, with no-one stepping up to take advantage of fulfilling the demand such moves have left for non-astronomically priced memory on the consumer side.
Hello all! Generally, I like to start the weekly Maw round-up with a gruesome account of some cosmic disturbance, but fleeting experience of the world of Theatah has taught me that often, you're better off warming up the crowd with a joke. Here is one: What's a pirate's favourite letter? Answer at the bottom of the page.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, the follow-up to that Cyberpunk 2077 Netflix anime, finally has a release window. A year or so on from its initial announcement, the new series is slated to debut this autumn, with CD Projekt Red and Netflix having revealed the fresh cast of characters who'll be taking over the reigns from David Martinez and co.
Coffee Talk started out as a slice-of-life visual novel casting you as a night-shift barista serving Seattle’s uniquely magical residents, from elves to vampires to succubi, hearing out and advising their whims and woes over steaming cups. Its strength was not just in the individual lines of dialogue spouting from these monsters (affectionate), but also in how those were placed within the context of Magical Seattle: a thread of societal distaste towards interspecies relationships, for example, is held taut through several characters’ arcs, not just in the two characters whose parents explicitly disapprove of them for it. Opinions and arguments towards the ills facing this world are treated with the weight they deserve, acknowledging the fluidity of both public opinion and the problems themselves.
Sundays are for hopping over stepping stones across a river. There's a stone missing in the middle. Immediately, a quest decision prompt flashes up before my eyes, offering three choices: turn back in humiliation; attempt the leap and risk perishing in the writhing waters, leaving this week's Sunday Papers unfinished; or pile up smaller stones into a rudimentary foothold – an alteration of the river's flow that will surely lead to calamity miles downstream in the Humber Estuary. Urgency is added by the arrival of swarms of flies.
I chickened out and turned back in the end, but not before taking a lovely photo. Anyway, here are some things to read.
The thing about Citizen Sleeper is that I wish there was more of it. Not literally, necessarily, I'd never want that world to be exhausted of its setting, and my imagination is stronger than any threequel or otherwise. Still, I'd like to play more of it because its inventive approach to digitising tabletop RPG design still feels fresh now. Thankfully, more and more games inspired by its structure are popping up, like Joy Malignant, another dice-based RPG where every choice you make affects how people see you.
I do love me an odd little immersive sim I do. There's just something special about the flexibility in them, so my ears always perk up like a dog hearing the word walkies whenever a new one enters the scene. Today, it's Bloodwoven, the next game from the devs behind Blood West (guess they like blood a lot), with a logline that has immediately drawn me in: "survive and thrive in a world built upon the frozen corpse of a forgotten god." Chills!
Civilization 7 is a big, complicated mess of a game with intricacies so delicate you and I couldn't possibly understand at a glance how or why they were decided upon. So, to shed some light on the design process, Firaxis has put out a big ole post answering a load of community questions digging into things like controversial historic figures, whether there'll be more 20th century era leaders coming in the future, and more besides.
Earlier this week, French video game union STJV called for a national industry strike, starting with a picket line held at Detroit: Become Human developer Quantic Dream's physical studio. The union claimed that 115 jobs were at risk of layoffs as part of an "internal reorganisation." Now, based on a report that speaks with some devs that work at Quantic Dream, it sounds like the studio's upcoming Star Wars Eclipse is at risk of cancellation.
Hmm. On the one hand, a Turbulent Thursday. On the other, a Big Mum. We’ve all had Thursdays we could describe as turbulent, so the owner of the 2014 Nissan Fairlady Z who drives with the Neo Limited crew scores a point for relatability. That said, the large mother of the Family Business gang, who as fate would have it also drives a Fairlady Z, scores points for being straightforwardly funky. Both racers’ names are hilarious to me, but in the list of top ten opponent monikers from Tokyo Xtreme Racer, there simply isn’t room for both of them.
I would like to say this missive is brought to you from a dark, ventilated room where I lay upon a bed of ice packs. However, if all goes according to masochistic plan, I will already have been cycling for a few hours when this goes live. I need to get out of the house and onto the road before the sun's too high in the sky and the tarmac becomes an oven baking me from below.
The payoff at the other end? The first BBQ of the summer and, I sincerely hope, a tall glass of chilled water.
A long time ago in a games industry far, far away, a bunch of Sony Online Entertainment developers had the crazy idea of adding Jedi characters to an MMO without either robbing all the other classes of appeal, or nerfing the Force-wielders into oblivion.
With the days ticking down until July, when Xbox are said to be fully pulling the trigger on mass upheaval that could see studios closed and will almost certainly see jobs cut, bosses at one of the studios reported to have its future hanging in the balance have given some staff permission to openly seek new work. This, it's claimed, is the reason a bunch of devs at South of Midnight studio Compulsion Games have taken to LinkedIn ahead of any layoffs being confirmed to post that they're on the market for other jobs.
There's nothing I revel in more than a game with a simple concept and committing to it as fully as possible. So, here's BREKEKEKEX, a stylish action/3D brawler that pits you against frogs, cultists, guys on hogs, guys with buckets on their heads, "and worse." It is mouthwateringly ridiculous; in what world does a Dragon Ball arena fighter where you fight frogs somehow pass as a good pitch? My one, at the very least.
Many years ago, Suzy Eddie Izzard did a stand-up routine about different makes of vacuum cleaner, including the immortal "Hodededededer" of undecided linguistic origin. Izzard also enjoys sending up cheesy horror movies. Now that I've played 7 Nights with Vroombi, which launches today on Steam, I'd love to see Izzard do a sketch about a robot vacuum cleaner stuck in a haunted house. Because that is what 7 Nights with Vroombi is about.
Each night, you emerge from your nook to ingest a certain quantity of dust particles, while contending with eerie phenomena. The furniture is in the habit of moving around of its own accord. There is moaning behind some of the doors. The dust lies in peculiarly ornate patterns. Worst of all, perhaps, are the scribbled notes and doodles left out for you by a child, Lily. These range from tips about your scanner button to worrying asides like "You can't leave, can you, Mr Vroombi?" Right now, I'd say there's a 55% chance that Lily is actually Satan.
I swear to God it's too warm to do anything in the UK this week. I am barely coping in the heat if it wasn't for the array of small Ohyama Woozoo fans I have, plus an array of Meaco air circulators and more besides. Of course this week is the week that all the deals are happening - that's just the way of the world it seems - and none of us can catch a naffing break. Godspeed to anyone outside doing real work in this UK heat - can we make air con mandatory in new homes, please?
Being too hot to do anything means it's too warm to build your own PC as I see it, so to save you the hassle, I've gone on my merry way and found an array of six pre-built PC deals from up and down the price ladder across the UK and USA that should give you plenty of grunt for your favourite games. Finding discounts on pre-built PCs was surprisingly difficult, owing to the issues we've seem with everything from shortages for components to pesky overpricing that doesn't do anybody any favours, meaning that the whole pricing structure for certain tiers of PC have shifted up somewhat, which doesn't help anybody.
The six PCs I've put below have been picked out in the following order. First based on region, and then in order of mid-range, budget and then expensive - putting the one that I think is best for price to performance first and hitting a strong mid-tier choice with good power, then a more affordable choice for 1080p or 1440p gaming, and then a bit of a splurge option if you've got the spare cash to play at 4K. Given the way things are these days, I haven't gone mad with the latter choice and specced out a money-no-object choice, and kept to things that are a bit more reasonable given the circumstances for at least a hint of affordability.
Of course, we're sticking with the fact this is anti Prime Day coverage after all, so none of these deals are from The Retailer Who Must Not Be Named, instead from either PC builders directly or larger retailers with surpisingly good deals given the current context. If you're on the lookout for more deals after this, then you can check out James' master guide for our RPS Anti Prime Day deals coverage, or my roundup of seven more excellent deals across the UK and USA. Without further ado, here are six prebuilt PC deals I've spotted from other retailers that I think are worth your time.
Patreon CEO Jack Conte has shared his views on the difficulties of working with payment processors and networks such as Stripe and Mastercard, who have the power to enforce their ideas about 'adult content' on stores and platforms by threatening to stop processing customer transactions. As boss of one of the biggest crowd-funding outfits, he's keen to support artists "who are on the edges", but also claims that the likes of Patreon have minimal "leverage" against the payment networks. It's a useful bit of context for the on-going crackdown on NSFW games on Steam and Itch.io.
United Wizards of the Coast - CWA, a union Magic: The Gathering Arena developers voted in favour of forming earlier this year, has now officially been elected. The union filed an election petition with the US National Labor Relations Board back in April, while also requesting that Wizards of the Coast voluntarily recognise them. The workers claimed in May that the company were dragging their heels on the latter, having missed a deadline.
I have something to admit to you all. I'm not very good at Marathon. I like when the guns go pew pew, I like the weird sci-fi vibes, but the second I run into another person I'll be lucky if I make it out with all of my limbs intact. As a result, I had resigned myself to never experiencing Cryo Archive, the game's super duper hardcore map exclusive to both crews and those with the prerequisite skills and loot. But! I bring good news for those of you who stink at shooters like me: Marathon's first proper (experimental) PvE mode utilises Cryo Archive as its point of operation, and you can even play it by your lonesome.
Well, the big Prime Day deals bonanza has finally arrived, and we aren't going with it. Well, we are - as James has noted in his big master guide, there is some mutual benefit for talking about deals and all for both you and us, but that's besides the point. None of the deals you're going to find here are Amazon deals - I've gone through the deluge of other retailers you could choose to spend your hard-earned cash at over the next couple of days, and rounded up what I think are some of the best reductions across our fair United Kingdom and the United States of Freedomland.
"Why should you trust me?", I hear you cry. Well, I've written thousands of deals articles for plenty of websites over the years, including this fair site and Eurogamer for many years, and have covered these ridiculous 'deals holidays' in all their glory for quite some time, so like to think I can pick the wheat from the chaff when it comes to what's good and what's not. Too many 'deals' these days are barely worth talking about, and folks have gotten wise to it with all of the price tracking and history tools we've got these days.
So, before I waffle on any further, here are the seven (because ten would have turned this into every other roundup) best anti Prime Day deals I've spotted across both the UK and USA, including a little bit of a writeup on why I think each product is worth your time and money.
If you thought becoming deputy editor would get a man off the hook from sifting through Prime Day deals, you would be incorrect. Apparently. Still, these days I’m especially not in the mood to point people towards Amazon – lest even a single penny continue to bulge the pockets of their anti-press, pro-authoritarian executive chairman, one of the wealthiest men in history and yet so thin-skinned he won’t even let RPG characters be named after him.
At the same time, I will concede that there is a mutually beneficial utility in pointing out PC hardware discounts at a time when PC hardware is suffering an extended bout of overpricing and shortages. Just ask the Steam Machine, eh. It therefore seems like the best way to proceed is to resurrect the RPS Anti-Prime Day deals guide: a curated selection of components and peripherals that are actually worth your cash, all from non-Amazon retailers.
Following a serious revamp with the Test of Time update, Civ 7 devs Firaxis are ready to deploy the next raft of additions and tweaks to the strategy game. With the ability play as one society through an entire game now in place, this latest update delivers another classic Civ staple - the option to take on your mates on one PC via hotseat local multiplayer games.
We've all done it. One moment, you're playing The Elder Scrolls 3. Then, boom, you pass the thrust and everything implodes. Thankfully, the latest update to OpenMW - the open source engine reimplementation that's one of the the best ways to play Morrowind on modern hardware - includes measures to stop this thrusting from accidentally breaking the game.
As AI continues to be shoehorned into game development with more regularity, Michał Nowakowski - joint CEO of Witcher 4 developers CD Projekt - has said he "knows for a fact" games built purely with generative AI are on the way. Mercifully, he's got "doubts" about whether this method's the ideal way forward, meaning there's no need to worry at this juncture that Ciri'll soon be battling hordes of ChatGPThouls.
Sundays are for sitting by a window in your pants eating cold pasta, as a game of football meanders through its grassy paces on a screen not too far away. Light curtains drawn in an attempt to eliminate any chance for people in the street below to catch a glimpse of your boxers, time slows to a crawl. You're never not moving, but at least in this moment you're being afforded that chance to move slowly. Life never stops, but it does at least occasionally allow the odd evening in cruise control. You're snapped out of your trance by a flurry of activity on the screen. A decision has been made. One team flap around voicing their unhappiness. The referee ushers them away so the ball can be placed and the spot kick taken. The taker steps up. On the back of his shirt, instead of a name, you see a question.
Many of you young'uns might hear the term Y2K and think of a vague, all encompassing descriptor of 2000s aesthetics, but us older folk think of it as this apocalyptic event that never came to be at the turn of the new millennium. Because the world didn't end, many thought that it was just a load of hogwash. In reality, there was a genuine computer bug that could have ruined important infrastructure worldwide if it hadn't been fixed leading up to the year 2000. All this to say, here's MonCraft 199X, a Pokemon-esque survival game where Y2K really did happen.
It's been a while since there's been a new Ultima! Just about eight years, in fact, and it wasn't even called Ultima (it was Underworld Ascendant, which we didn't review back in the day). Such is the case with many series' that are over 40 years old, they just don't have quite the same steam as they used to. But then earlier this week, it appeared that EA (who have long owned the rights to the series) filed a couple of new trademarks for Ultima this week. And following this, it appears series' creator Richard "Lord British" Garriot is trying to get the copyright back.
I think despite the mess that was the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, it wouldn't be right to say that CD Projekt Red's reputation was completely tarnished. It is still a game with a lot of cultural relevancy, and nobody can shut up about The Witcher 3 to such a degree that it's even getting a brand new expansion more than 10 years after the last one came out. Even still, it doesn't sound like joint CEO Michał Nowakowski is entirely convinced that the studio has managed to complete its redemption arc.
Back in March, a report emerged claiming that Sony no longer had plans to release the likes of Ghost of Yōtei and other such singleplayer-only games on PC. Sony are yet to explicitly confirm that this is the case, but it certainly seems like that is the case based on their annual business environment and strategy report for PlayStation. Oh, but it does mention how they plan to use AI, so. Yay.
Despite being a dad game, a pseudo-genre that has its fair share of problems in the way it depicts father-child relationships, Pragmata generally seemed to approach all of this fairly well. The consensus seems to be that space man Hugh was genuinely kind of a nice guy, and that his relationship with Diana was actually quite sweet. But as it turns out, the game's lead devs had to get a bit of a helping hand in writing Diana specifically, resulting in a group of women coming in to help as part of the "Diana Police."
Saturdays are for realising that there are ASMR playlists for Frictional's Amnesia games. ASMR playlists, for games that make use of subliminal crackling noises to suggest mounting delirium, and Shepard tones to create the impression that a life-saving generator is always just about to run out of fuel.
What on earth is wrong with you people? And why can't I stop listening to the Rebirth one? What is it about the sound of a thousand ghoul talons raking a blackboard that goes so well with a bowl of Shreddies? It is too late for me, I fear. Here's what the rest of the team are up to.
Late last year, the modders behind an ambitious Baldur's Gate 3 custom campaign mod called Path to Menzoberranzan pencilled in plans to release a Nautiold-sized demo level during the first half of 2026. That timeline was settled on following a re-think of the project's scope last summer, and with this summer now in full swing, the group have put out a teaser of the level alongside announcing its environments are nearly finished.
If you've put in an order for a Steam Controller and are still awaiting its arrival, a new system Valve have rolled out can offer you an estimate of when you should hear from them about your order. While you'll only be given one of three very rough windows, it's at least something to go on if you're wondering where you're at in the queue.
The Epic Games Store is not very good. This is not a controversial thing to say, I'm fairly certain, as the lack of features available within it feels a bit odd also eight years into the thing existing. Sure, there's some free games every now and then (like Citizen Sleeper, right now), but there's a lot of basic things missing. But it seems much of that, including simple things like patch notes, will be coming within the next 12 months.
In front of me is a single die. It costs me a bit of money to roll it, but I get a four, so I get four dollars, so I'm making a profit all the same. It costs me a bit more to roll this time. I do it anyway, and I get a bit more money, and more importantly experience points. After a while, I'm able to add in another die. You know what that means: more money. And I need the money, because I owe the devil a good few hundo. This is Meaningless Random Numbers, an incremental horror game where god is watching you.
Thick As Thieves developers OtherSide Entertainment have laid off 17 employees following the cancellation of a multiplayer immersive sim dubbed Argos: Riders on the Storm. The studio's helmed by Looking Glass Studios veterans Warren Spector and Paul Neurath - key figures in shaping the likes of Deus Ex and System Shock 2 - said via a spokesperson that they believe Argos "could have been a huge success in normal times".
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, overseer of a company which fired over 1000 staff just a few months ago, has laid out his vision for the games industry's future during a "time of both crisis and opportunity". As Epic revealed an Unreal Engine 6 packed with generative AI model support designed to "reduce the tedious work" that goes into making games, Sweeney painted a picture of a future in which the threat of Roblox eating the world is combatted by a bunch of game makers working with Epic to create a massive integrated everythingverse that's somehow totally different to Roblox's massive integrated everythingverse.
Prolific FromSoft game multiplayer modder Yui is "close" to being ready to open up alpha testing of their latest seamless co-op mod, this time for Dark Souls 2. Despite it following the the footsteps of their seamless co-op mods for the likes of Elden Ring, Nightreign, and the original Dark Souls, Yui said this DS2 mod's turned out to be a very different kettle of fish and one of their "most complicated and ambitious projects to date".
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
The Witcher 3's multiplayer mod, the world's premier tool for forming big towers of multiple Geralts precariously perched atop each others' shoulders, has added another string to its bow. You can now meet up with some mates at a tavern to play games of Gwent against them, a concept so appealing CD Projekt made a whole game out of it.
As reports suggesting major changes are brewing at Xbox, likely involving mass layoffs, continue to swirl, the console maker's current boss' plans for the future apparently involve pushing out new Fallout and Elder Scrolls games in speedier fashion. Asha Sharma's desire to whip out new entries in flagship series reportedly comes as Microsoft are considering spinning out or restructuring Xbox as a subsidiary.
