“We’re going to take things slow": South of Midnight devs now own the rights to all their games again, after quitting Xbox, and are working on a new game

We Happy Few and South of Midnight developers Compulsion Games have announced that they are fully broken up with Microsoft and Xbox, after completing a management buyout. They now once again own the rights to all their own original intellectual properties. Amongst other things, this means that you can buy South of Midnight – summarised by Brendy (RPS in peace) as "a beautiful folkloric tale" and a "plain and unambitious" action-adventure – while still taking part in the BDS boycott against Microsoft's Israeli military connections. When you buy the Steam version of South of Midnight, all your money (after Valve's revenue cut) will go to Compulsion.

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PSA: In the latest GTA 6 leak's aftermath, it's not a good idea to download files with names like totallylegitgta6leakedbuild.exe

While scammers and other ne'er-do-wells leaning into the allure of playing GTA 6 as part of their efforts to spread malware isn't anything new - cybersecurity companies have been issuing warnings about it for months - there appears to have been an uptick in such behaviour following the latest GTA 6 leak. With speculation rampant as to what exactly the hackers known as Cyberleek may have access to, now is not the time to be downloading any files claiming to be GTA 6.

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Mortal Shell 2's first balance patch makes its in-game economy a lot more lenient and nerfs some enemies and bosses for a smoother ride

Heavy is the burden of being a game developer, as even as a game launches, there is always still work to be done. Mortal Shell 2 is out today, and while it generally seems to be doing quite well for itself, a game of its ilk, i.e. a Soulslike, doesn't necessarily get everything right the first go around (or I guess second first in this case). So, to smooth out some edges, developer Cold Symmetry have already released the game's first balance patch.

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Active development on League of Legends fighting game spinoff 2XKO will be coming to an end at the end of the year

Riot Games' fighting game take on the world of League of Legends, 2XKO, is winding down development. The developer shared word today that active development on the game is ending December this year, citing a lack of a strong enough adoption and retention rate for the fighting game.

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Black Myth: Zhong Kui shows off 15 minutes of rollparrysliceage, and I've just learned that the bloke it's named after was a lethally effective headbanger

Game Science have put out a fresh trailer showing off Black Myth: Zhong Kui, their follow-up to Chinese mythology-stuffed action-RPG Black Myth: Wukong, in action. A year on from its reveal at 2025's Gamescom, Zhong Kui's looking as slicey and rolly as its predecessor, despite a switch in protagonist.

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EA's Saudi takeover wouldn't have happened if the company's culture "had any semblance of a moral backbone", say staff fearing layoffs and ownership meddling

Now the ink's starting to dry on the Saudi Arabian government and Jared Kushner-backed takeover of EA, which has seen the company go private, staff are getting to grips with what the ownership change might mean for them going forwards. Fears of layoffs and teams or game series being sold off following the leveraged buyout hang in the air alongside unease about the effect the Saudi state's values might have on what gets the green light in future, with staff suggesting EA haven't done a very good job of alleviating such concerns.

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Latest alleged GTA 6 leak "risks tarnishing the reputation of our communities", say Stop Killing Games after hackers claim pro-consumer motivations

As you might have seen, there was another alleged GTA 6 leak yesterday, with apparent footage of Rockstar's crime sandbox in action spread across the net and in many cases swiftly hit with DMCA takedowns. The group seemingly behind the leakage this time have claimed that their motivations have to do with ranging against anti-consumer practices by publishers, prompting the Stop Killing Games campaign to step in and issue a statement condemning and distancing themselves from the hack.

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Clipmatrix is a Counter-Strike-like, bunny hopping, platforming romp through surreal and industrial locales

A thing that always tickles me in a particular way is when a game takes a beloved mechanic from an iconic game that doesn't technically exist. By not existing I'm talking about something like wavedashing in Super Smash Bros. Melee. You can't play that game professionally without doing it, and yet it's just an exploit as opposed to something purposeful, but there are derivatives that directly bake it in. So, despite never playing its source (pun intended (you'll see what I mean in a second)) of inspiration, I'm quite intrigued by Clipmatrix, a momentum platformer set in surreal, industrial locales built around Source Engine bunny hopping found in the likes of Counter-Strike.

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Entropy, a deliciously miserable Final Fantasy-esque RPG where your party members can permanently die, is now out in early access

I was already aware of Entropy before Edwin called it a game that looked like a PS1 game fished from a toilet, primarily thanks to the stellar work developer Lovely Hellplace carried out in their previous game Dread Delusion, but I'm sure that would have hooked me in conceptually just as easily. And now you can dive into this turn-based, post-apocalyptic RPG yourself, as it's launched into early access.

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Talking trees, flying witch heads and an unsettling rabbit man await in the shrubbery of cursed woodland ranger sim I Hear the Forest

Nature's relaxing, yeah? Life as a forest ranger, wandering around amid the trees and making sure none of the animals are getting up to mischief sounds a bit like bliss. Unless you're the forest ranger in freshly announced horror game I Hear the Forest, who's been cursed and is thus not having a relaxing time in the woods.

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Deus Ex director and immersive sim legend Warren Spector is retiring, despite having "three games in particular" he'd still like to make

Warren Spector, Deus Ex director and general household name of the PC gamingverse, has announced his retirement from game development. Though, he's not completely closed the door on making a comeback down the line, alluding to three games in particular that he'd still like to make if the right circumstances popped up.

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Sraëka Lillian's one-a-week RPG "sketches" are a lovely series of experiments with hoary old conventions from Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest

There's a running joke in the world of THEA-TAH that Shakespeare's Hamlet is a play made up entirely of quotations. I often get the same feeling when I play a fantasy RPG, and especially a fantasy RPG created with toolkits such as EasyRPG or RPG Maker that come with their own freely reusable assets, resulting in a slew of homebrew RPGs that can seem interchangeable, on the surface.

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This week in PC games: survival horror in a waterlogged city, kaiju chaos in a destructible city, and old school GTA vibes in an isometric insurgency simulator

Videogames. Gosh there are a lot of them. We're not even into the hell month of September – where every major developer besides Rockstar seems to be releasing their big games of the year – and we're looking at a packed week.

Below you will find the whittled down pickings that stood out to me, but head over to Steam and you will find ten times more. It's a good time for wishlisting, if nothing else.

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Kingdom Hearts 4 releasing in late 2027, according to a trailer in which Donald Duck and Goofy go to hell, miss a skeletal fiesta and rock up as creepy force ghosts

I'll be honest, having just watched the latest trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4, I'm less confident I know what's going on in the game. Protagonist Sora's in a realm visually inspired by Mexican Día de Muertos celebrations, while Donald Duck and Goofy ship of the Greek underworld, then end up as force ghosts before rocking up in the Mexican realm without Sora. At least the game's freshly announced release window is less confusing to non-hearts heads. It's due out in late 2027.

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for getting up early and testing the legs are still in working order after potentially overdoing it with a crosscountry ride. All week, climbing stairs has been a struggle, like the muscles contain only vapours of energy. Just a little test cycle out to the woods to see if everything's tickety boo.

Then, inevitably, when I collapse into bed afterward, it will be time to settle into some heavy reading. Exercise for the old noggin, you know?

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Ron Gilbert talks the untraditional way he got Thimbleweed Park 2 funded, and his frustrations with modern publishing deals

I think it would be a tad fair if you heard that Thimbleweed Park 2 is in the works and thought, "who funded that?" Not because it doesn't deserve funding, but because adventure games aren't exactly in vogue (even though it's not as dead a genre as many think), and also there's that whole video game industry crumbling around us day by day thing. When it was announced last month, creator Ron Gilbert said that it was thanks to the help of a private investor, and now the developer has shed a bit of light on how that came to be, and how that relationship works.

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O EMPIRE! WARD OFF THY ROT puts you in an abandoned, dithered world with a cursed object and asks you to do one thing: survive the journey

Do you remember, or do you even know, about the Game Boy Camera? It's exactly as it sounds, a little camera attached to an original Game Boy cartridge that you could plug in and take photos with. You could even get a printer! The aesthetic therewithin is a particular one, utilising a tiny 128x128 pixel sensor, the end result being an incredibly dithered and pixelated yet charming look. There are few games that capture such a vibe, but O EMPIRE! WARD OFF THY ROT, a game about carrying a cursed object through an abandoned world, might just manage to.

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"For a few weeks, women were just dropping their babies": The Witcher 3 lead on designing NPCs that react appropriately

Gone are the days where a developer could give an NPC maybe two lines of dialogue and call it a day. The steady shift to realism essentially enforces the idea that characters must behave realistically, which is why whenever some kind of glitch or bug makes an NPC move about in an impossible manner it does numbers on Your Favourite Social Media App. And according to CD Projekt Red quest designer Philipp Weber, getting The Witcher 3's NPCs to react appropriately was a tad tricky.

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Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl's meaty 2.0 update brings functional fog, a suite of A-Life improvements, and more when it arrives next week

Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl's big 2.0 update is right around the corner, and developer GSC Game World have shared a plethora of details of what you can expect from it. For starters, the shooter is getting a visual upgrade, with a particular emphasis on lighting adjustments. Indoor lighting should look more realistic, the general landscape and foliage should look more natural, and hundreds of items that were previously inadvertently floating have been fixed too.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

Bit of a quiet one this week, gang. Half the RPS team are on holiday, ill, or off at some preview event, maybe in a less melty part of the world like Scandinavia, the lucky bastards. Games, however, must be played, and if it happens to be over a weekend, well...

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I love the Dark Soulful architecture of The Canon of Balls, a rolling open world game inspired by Sega, Fumito Ueda and Minecraft parkour

What do Dark Souls, Super Monkey Ball, Shadow of the Colossus, and Minecraft have in common? They are all explicit inspirations for The Canon of Balls, a spooky and unforgiving new open world platformer in which you are a horrified statue's face with a fleshy pink tongue, floating inside a rolling cage. You can use your tongue as a springboard.

Look, stay with me on this. I think The Canon of Balls could be good. Yes, I know that we've done "Dark Souls in a ball" already this month, but I think this game stands apart. It reminds me a little of Straftat in being a very specific, even obstinate throwback project that's less about nostalgia - less about sheer recreation, and more the feeling that a deserted vein of weirdness has more to give, that there's another future down here somewhere.

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Total War: Warhammer 3 is getting a big free vampiric update in September, alongside the epithet-stuffed Lords of the End Times DLC

Creative Assembly have announced a release date for Total War: Warhammer 3 expansion Lords of the End Times. Consisting of four new legendary lords, each with a distinct retinue, campaign and battle map abilities, it's billed as "the biggest DLC that we’ve ever released in the series 10-year history". It'll accompany another, reportedly gargantuan free update with yet another legendary lord, the Vampire Queen Neferata, together with a rework for the Vampire Counts and Archaon The Everchosen, some new endgame scenarios, and updated victory conditions.

There are over a hundred legendary lords in Twarhammer 3 at this point. I feel like the legendariness is at risk of being diluted. Can we organise some kind of spin-off game where every Warhammer army consists entirely of legendary lords? How about the legendary lords all go live on a big New England college campus and solve mysteries together? How about a Warhammer legendary lord adaptation of Guess Who?

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Invisum Piscium 嫌魚 is a dreamlike walking sim about fragments of conversations and a deep craving for water fish haven't procreated in

I won't dive into why this is happening to me at the moment, you'll either need to pay me £20 or let me pay you to be my therapist to get that explanation, but I've been having some odd dreams lately. They're frequently temporally confused, mixing and matching people from across my life that should never have crossed paths. This has left me looking to ground myself a touch, so of course I decided to take a look at Invisum Piscium 嫌魚, a walking sim that's not quite about dreaming, but is about looking for distilled water that's free from fish sex contamination.

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Necrons are "extremely arrogant aliens that feel like they cannot die," so their weakness in Dawn of War 4 is an obvious one: greed

Dawn of War 4's Necrons are the hard nuts of Warhammer 40,000. Each one of their soldiers is a >soul trapped in a living metal body, practically immortal thanks to the faction's reanimation technology. Like a clothes moth infestation, once they've made their home on a planet, they're virtually impossible to get rid of. They lend themselves to wars of attrition, constantly expanding their borders while absorbing enemy attacks.

"Players love this type of playstyle," Dawn of War 4's senior game designer Elliott Verbiest tells me, "but it's something that isn't necessarily conducive to interesting multiplayer gameplay. It's kind of the same deal as rock, paper scissors where both players are just throwing rock over and over and over again."

To counter this, developers King Art Games have introduced a chink in the Necron's armour, and it's a very human impulse: greed.

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Twitch are scraping streams for AI training by default, and even their own execs don’t know what user data may have been swept up

Livestreaming giants Twitch have admitted using streamed content to train the generative AI models of parent company Amazon. While it’s not clear when the platform began feeding its users’ work into Jeffy B’s Planetkilling Machines, yesterday’s announcement of an opt-out toggle – buried deep within Twitch’s security settings, and set to enable AI stream-gobbling by default – sparked outrage among streamers and viewers that such scraping was occurring at all.

Twitch’s chief product officer Mike Minton and head of community Mary Kish were wheeled out to explain the policy in a stream of their own, though it’s possible the only ones reassured by the discussion were the Amazon bots themselves. Although Minton was upfront about the models’ use of streamed video, he conceded that he didn’t know if users’ personal data had also been caught up in the scraping net, and that he wasn’t actually sure what Amazon "has done in terms of model training." Awesome. Awesome.

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All Haul The King is a co-op comedy corpse-dragging simulator from the makers of Eclipsium, one of 2025's best horror games

"That game with the massive dead body was created using generative AI!" roared the masses. "Oh shucks," said I, "Don't worry, I'll soon find another massive dead body game to write about." Reader, never let it be said that I am not as good as my word. In All Haul The King, players team up to drag the huge, elastic carcass of a goblin sovereign from one end of the world to the other. Your goal is to get him onto the Throne of Resurrection. This might go easier if you transform him into an anvil. Anvils don't wobble around quite so much, after all. Here is a trailer.

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Spaceship bullet heaven Seven Suns of Orion has what Vampire Survivors lacks: semi-Newtonian physics and railguns

I don't truly want to say a bad word about Vampire Survivors. I've adored the many hours I've spent in its endearingly slapdash dungeons. It's also responsible for spawning a thousand imitators, many of which I have also poured hours of my life into playing. But, for all of its joys and successes, I can't defend its lack of railguns.

I don't know what Poncle were thinking when they let you loose on a world filled with monsters and ghouls and didn't arm you with an electromagnetic gun that launches projectiles at more than 3 km/s.

It may not be a stake doused in holy water, but I reckon the railgun in Seven Suns Of Orion would do just as good of a job against Dracula.

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As Peak gets its final big update, developers Landfall and Aggro Crab explain why it isn't a "forever game"

We have reached peak Peak. By that I mean, the final major update that was teased last week, The Final Ascent, is here and ready for you to try out. The big thing here is the two new variant biomes, Gloom and The Citadel. Gloom, unsurprisingly, is an incredibly foggy area filled with massive trees, mysterious bells and ominous spikes, whereas The Citadel is mostly just that; a castle-like structure with swinging spiky balls, secret arrow traps and those floors where a bunch of spears shoot upwards and you have to time walking across them just right.

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"I think that might be a misread": Thief designer on why making a triple-A immersive sim doesn't really work

Broadly speaking, it's fine for something to exist as a niche. Whatever form of media a thing might be, to fulfil a niche is to meet the expectations of at least a handful of people with a particular taste that many others don't, and I think that's a delightful thing to do. In video games, immersive sims might not be the most niche genre in the world, but they've historically not done gangbusters sales wise, meaning that triple-A takes don't quite make their money back. If you ask Randy Smith Evergreen, a designer on Thief: The Dark Project, perhaps avoiding the world of triple-A is the way to go for immersive sims.

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Mortal Shell 2 will let you lower its difficulty by making executions refill your health, or up the challenge by turning off the sun

While Soulslike Mortal Shell 2 doesn't feature traditional difficulty modes, developers

Cold Symmetry have included a set of special items that let you tweak the challenge to your liking.

As someone who just got back from a three-day cycle trip with friends who coasted up the hills on bikes fitted with fancy 12-speed rear cassettes loaded with extra, larger gear cogs, while I huffed and puffed on my 11-speed, this is an approach to difficulty I both recognise and envy.

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Stop Killing Games join lawsuit against the PlayStation Store's "Sony Tax," in latest venture beyond game preservation

"It’s time to sue Sony," game preservation advocates Stop Killing Games have declared, as the group throws its weight behind a Dutch lawsuit targeting the PlayStation Store’s alleged monopoly and "Sony Tax" on digital games.

While the case originated back in 2024, as part of an effort by Dutch consumer group Stichting Massaschade & Consument, the core complaint – that Sony wields monopoly power by only making digital PlayStation games available through its own store – has been compounded by the recent reveal that Sony plans to ditch physical games entirely in 2028, effectively cutting out its only source of competition. Allegedly. For Stop Killing Games, it’s also the latest in a string of non-preservation-specific causes the organisation have amplified, possibly indicating a widened advocacy mandate after failing its key goal of securing new European Commission legislation to keep discontinued games playable offline.

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Shipping ore between the asteroid mining stations of Profits 2167 would be much easier if it weren't for the darn space bug infestation

After a 90-second electrical fault left me stuck for two hours at Wilmslow station this weekend, I could be fooled into thinking trains are delicate fickle things. However, PROFITS 2167: Planetary Resource Optimization & Freight Infrastructure Technician Simulator is here to set me straight. The game puts you in the driver's seat on a train rattling along the tracks of a deep space mining operation. A mining operation under assault from thousands of space bugs.

Avanti West Coast might struggle on hot days (and cold days, and wet days, and windy days…), but when you're behind the wheel of Profits 2167's locomotive, you'll have to plough straight through the swarming insect masses.

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Over the Hill, SnowRunner's hippie off-roading cousin from the Art of Rally devs, gets an October release date

Fire up the Landy! Over the Hill, Funselektor and Strelka Games' off-roader which takes the hardcore trail-running you get in a sim like SnowRunner and sands off the edges a bit to make for more chill countryside-roaming, finally has a release date. It's set to motor onto the scene in October, following a Steam Next Fest demo which I dug.

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"Expect fake messages": A load of Steam user personal info has been stolen thanks to a cyberattack on one of Valve's partners, claims report

If you live in Europe and have bought hardware from Steam in the past three months, then watch out, your personal information might have been stolen thanks to a cyberattack on one of Valve's shipping partners.

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This week in PC games: GoldenEye returns (sort of), plus janky arcade football, ballpoint cities, and a game about keeping the monsters inside Area 51

This week in PC games: too much horror! And not the kind related to graphics card prices, stinky corporate acquisitions, or the general corrosion of all that is real and good. There are a lot of horror games, I mean. I do like horror games, but I'm easily deadened by them - I need an apple-cheeked platformer or two to reset my gauges, between soul-harrowings.

Besides, if the weekly new game round-up skews too hard towards any one genre, the Maw gets acid reflux, and the last time that happened, it resulted in Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Fortunately, there are a few sweetie-pie city sims and novelty sport games knocking around, to lower the pH values. Let's get stuck in without further ado.

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If you drove yourself mad building computers in Minecraft, Pight's redstone-inspired puzzling is an affordable palate cleanser

If you're 1) in the mood for a soothing and affordable 2D block-shoving puzzler, and 2) have many memories of building frightful hydraulic slaughterhouses in Minecraft, then perhaps Pight is for you. Created by Turkish devs Mindlabor, it's about using pistons, dynamite, mystic portals, electricity blocks, and other cuboid fauna to move a lightbulb block onto a power source.

It takes open inspiration from Minecraft's redstone - an in-game substance that conducts power and thus, allows for the creation of preposterous industrial machines and even functional computers. The addition of redstone to Minecraft back in 2010 contributed to the rise of a whole genre of PC automation games. Playing Pight gives me a corresponding feeling of vertigo, though it's soon evaporated by the balmy straightforwardness of the puzzling – no need to worry about Endermen saboteurs in this one. Here's a trailer.

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Gothic 1 Remake devs hint at next game while announcing a photo mode, "Marvin mode" for cheaters, and some mysterious "alternative progression systems"

THQ Nordic's Gothic remake is getting a Photo Mode, some mysterious "alternative progression mechanics", an official mod kit, and something called Marvin Mode, development studio Alkimia Interactive have announced. What's a Marvin Mode? "The Gothic equivalent of a developer mode," Alkimia explain. "Think spawning creatures or items, teleporting around the map, or doing some silly things."

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for finally getting around to starting Peaky Blinders on your never-ending odyssey through all of the west's most laddish crime dramas. World War 1's just ended and every bloke's got PTSD from the trenches. Tommy Shelby and his brothers have returned to Birmingham, which probably hasn't helped their spirits. Cue lots of running around in flat caps and suits punching other blokes in flat caps and suits. Hours of fun so far, though I'm only a few episodes into the first series, so anyone who posts spoilers in the comments is getting slapped by a hat adorned with razor blades.

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Danchi Days, out this October, brings the Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak vibes I've been desperately craving since childhood

I think about Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak, a GBA game that has never seen a release outside of that platform, probably more than I should. That's primarily because my experience of it is solely relegated to occasionally (very occasionally) playing a friend's copy on the way to school, I never actually owned it. There's just something so vibey and hangoutable about it that I've never really seen captured in another game before, except for maybe the upcoming Danchi Days. Which, thankfully, has a release date at long last!

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Polyzonia is an ecosystem sim about breathing life into the Amazon rainforest until it can look after itself

How about we get in our digital grass touching for the day? Well, I suppose we can't just yet, as Polyzonia, an ecosystem sim set in the Amazon rainforest, isn't out just yet, but it has caught my eye at the very least.

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Two months after revealing Crossfire, That's No Moon have seemingly laid off 14 members of staff

Two months ago, That's No Moon, a studio made up of former Naughty Dog and Infinity Ward devs, revealed Crossfire, a cinematic military shooter with a sci-fi flair. The team first formed around five years ago, but now it appears that there's layoffs before they've even managed to get their first game out the door.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

It’s been a manageable, some might even say calm week for Team RPS, so we’re rewarding ourselves for a productive five days of PC games with some PC games. Or barbecue. Actually, that sounds better. Is it too late to switch?

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Quake gets a free new chapter promising "ferocious combat, labyrinthine level design, and nightmarish realms" to celebrate its 30th birthday

Yep, it really was that long ago. Classic FPS Quake turned 30 years old as of late June and to mark the occasion its 2021 enhanced version has gotten a free expansion dubbed Dawn of the Machine. Developed by both Id Software and MachineGames, it's all about hunting down a Nightmare Machine across new levels stocked with fresh enemies and weapons.

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Arise Dark Lord is an action-RTS hybrid styled like a Lord of the Rings map where you raise an army of the undead to kill all humans

What do we want? The ability to be evil in video games! How do we want it? Designed in a way that's mechanically enriching! That's what I'm hoping Arise Dark Lord will be, anyway, a Frankensteinian mish mash of action, real-time strategy, tower defence and base building where you are an evil overlord who rules over a nefarious army and wants to kill all humans.

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Repair sick robots and contemplate the role of healthcare providers in the deeply textured, pixel art, cyberpunk visual novel All Our Broken Parts

All Our Broken Parts is a game that is a lot to take in almost out the gate. It's a cyberpunk visual novel with resplendently detailed pixel art where you play as a robot doctor taking care of other robots, each with their own unique affliction. Oh, and humans have disappeared, the ocean doesn't exist anymore, and after a medical mishap, you've been forced into a tiny clinic with not much going for you.

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Roblox causes Wall Street value estimators to cry themselves a $9 billion puddle, as a result of pushing less kids towards aggressively monetised viral games

Wall Street moneyfolk are not having a good time. They're openly weeping into their expensive suit sleeves and not even a thousand pictures of lines going up can reassure them. They're sad about Roblox. The everythingverse of user-made games generally aimed at kids has let them down by changing its algorithm to push less kids towards "games that emphasise short-term monetisation". Cue $9 billion being lopped off Roblox Corp's market cap valuation, because how could the game's makers allow such a travesty to happen?

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Just in time for pre-Songs of the Past DLC refreshers, Witcher 3 modders have restored a cut menu which lets you watch story recaps at any time

Remember those little 'last time on The Witcher 3' recaps CD Projekt Red have Dandelion narrate if you load up a save or fast travel to a new section of the map midway through the RPG's main story? Well, it turns out the studio cut out a menu that'd have allowed you to go back and watch any of these helpful reminders of what Gerry from the River was up to at any time, much in the same way you can pop to the character biographies if you've forgotten who someone important is or how Geralt upset them years ago during one of his paperback adventures.

Now, modders have managed to restore said menu, creating an ideal way to quickly remind yourself of TW3's tale ahead of next year's Songs of the Past expansion, assuming you're not up for another playthrough.

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EA’s Saudi takeover will be "a real waste" if it turns the publishers into a "sequel-and-mega-franchise machine", Helldivers 2 studio boss says

Well, it's happened. EA's thumbs up from the European Commission, the $55 billion leveraged buyout by Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner-founded investment firm Affinity Partners has gone through. With the publishers now privately owned and saddled with a bunch of debt, questions loom about what their future will look like.

The CEO of Helldivers 2 studio Arrowhead, Shams Jorjani, hopes the answer won't be EA narrowing further into "a sequel-and-mega-franchise machine".

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Big Walk isn't an open world hangout sim, it's a secret Predator game, or it would be if House House would quit fixing the voice volume

You may have heard that Big Walk, the 12-player open world bumble-a-thon from Untitled Goose Game developers House House, is "a cooperative multiplayer adventure about teamwork and talking". You may have been tempted to call it a "hangout game", or the "antidote to friendslop". You may have read that it's a "sleepy, post-apocalyptic Center Parcs resort", in which players kick rolling lamps around and solve puzzles that involve rocks with keyholes. Such laughable fabrications! Big Walk is actually a serial killer training simulator.

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EA have gone private, as Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner's investment groups complete their $55 billion acquisition

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, equity firm Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner's Affinity partners have completed their $55 billion acquisition of EA Sports FC, Battlefield, The Sims, Mass Effect and Dragon Age publisher EA. This comes following a filing from EA to the US Securities and Exchange Commission last week, and confirmation that the European Commission had no intention to stop the deal.

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