"Getting sidetracked doesn’t feel too unnatural": Baldur's Gate 3 Act Two Expansion modder on how they seamlessly fit a "detour" to fight an army into the RPG's plot

Midway through September, modder SquallyDaBeanz released a solo-developed custom campaign for Baldur's Gate 3 in beta, adding an extra chapter to the RPG's main story. Neatly nestled between the RPG's second and third acts, the mod sends you and your party on a trip through The Chionthar Wilds while the Absolute's Army marches on towards the city the series is named after. SquallyDaBeanz has now offered a bit more explanation as to why they reckon the second section of BG3's established story benefits from having a few more forks in the road before the serious business of the final act begins.

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GTA 6 will simulate hurricanes, rainbows and persistent, dynamic clouds, among other efforts to make you stop doing crime and become a weather nerd

Grand Theft Auto 6 features a re-engineered, "more localized and persistent" weather system that ranges in intensity from physically credible rainbows to full-bore hurricanes, according to Rockstar vice president of art for lighting and rendering Owen Shepherd. As ever with GTA, the question is to what extent this will materially affect your doings in the new open world game, but at the very least, it seems like there's scope to pack in the core Bonnie & Clyde routine and become an amateur weather watcher for hours at a time.

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With Deadlock's latest updating promising six new heroes, over 10,000 new voice lines and too much more to mention, it's clear Valve are still pretty committed to it

It feels weird that Deadlock is technically a game that isn't out yet, doesn't it? You can't even just play it as someone that's never done so, you have to have someone that's already got access to send you an invite. Valve didn't even really acknowledge its existence publicly, and they still sort of treat it as this little secret that everyone's in on. Two years on, though, it's still getting updates, and the latest one arrived today changing… well, a lot.

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Sometimes the thing you need is a wonderfully ethereal physics platformer jam game where you are a little round guy with very stretchy arms called Big Stretch

I have a working theory that above all other aspects, the Vibe (with a capital V) of a game is the most important thing to enrapture a hypothetical audience. A strong Vibe is not a guarantee of such a thing, this algorithmic world we live in denies us such luxuries, it's just the most important starting point. The Vibe does not look like any one thing, the only rule is that it must elicit a response along the lines of, "now what's this, then?" Big Stretch, a game jam physics-based platformer that features hardly a semblance of assets, feels like it proves that theory to me.

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I perished in the flesh pipes of Darktide's Depths of the Damned update, and you will too

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide continues to cling tightly, perhaps even aggressively, to my Steam installations, my occasionally waning interest repeatedly re-sparked by the addition of akimbo-autopistolling chem fiends or haughty toasterpeople. A live service sucker, it makes me. Today's Depths of the Damned update, the grimdark co-op shooter's biggest since the Skitarii rocked up, continues the trend: it's centered around a massive new mission that's as revolting as it is compelling.

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"A quite beautiful compromise": The LEGO Skylines devs did consider brick by brick building, but decided it was too much fuss for players

LEGO Skylines is the new plastic city-builder from Cities: Skylines 2 and Surviving the Aftermath developers Iceflake Studios, published by Paradox Interactive. I've played an hour or so of a preview build, just long enough to devise a circular highway of coffee shops, glass-fronted houses, unaccountably cheerful farms, and playgrounds poking up haphazardly like fungus. Kind of like the M25, but more rustickal. There's a park in the middle that can't work out which century it's in, with an ornamental fountain every ten paces to baffle the casual stroller.

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The Witcher 3 Remastered has scuppered an ambitious cut plague quest restoration mod, but there'll be "something extra" in the update that gets it working again

Today, September 29th, The Witcher 3 is back on the path in Remastered form. With that remaster bringing a host of tweaks to the decade-old RPG, there was always going to be an adjustment period for the RPG's established mods. One that won't work right out of the gate is the WAR Project - an ongoing effort to restore a plague-themed questline CD Projekt Red abandoned prior to release.

However, the modders behind it have made clear this is just a temporary bump in the trail and promised "something extra" for the update that brings their demo up to remastered spec.

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Fright Train is the best Call of Duty Zombies alternative I've played in ages, despite starring a dog

There's been a wave of furry horror games with surprisingly elaborate tactical simulation elements, and when I say "wave", I mean that I'm aware of two. One is Casualties: Unknown, a 2D misericore spelunking experience with an injury system so byzantine it took Oisin multiple paragraphs to work out how to die. The other, somewhat nicer game is Fright Train, a swish B-movie survival shooter in which you are a literal dog soldier, the magnificent Doug Barker.

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This week in PC games: new Ace Combat, Transport Fever 3, and a System Shock-alike set on a disco space station

Happy this week all! ...Ugh, you are all still here. When I went on holiday last week, I was hoping that I'd return to find that the whole "videogame journalism career" thing was just a fleeting delusion brought on by excess consumption of unripe pears. Perhaps I've actually been a wealthy gentleman gadabout this whole time, free of any need to keep the hellmouth topped up with layoff reports in order to stave off deprivation and disaster.

The one consolation - other than EIC Julian's many encouraging facial expressions and hand gestures – is that people are still making new PC games, and a few of them are actually quite interesting! Here's the latest list of new releases.

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"We clearly handled that responsibility poorly": Paradox ban Discord profile pics of historical figures born after 1800, after bust-up with Hearts of Iron 4 players over Atatürk banning

Hearts of Iron 4 developers Paradox Interactive have prohibited the use of Discord profile pictures of historical figures born after 1st January 1800, save for official in-game portraits, amid an uproar caused by a moderator banning somebody for using a photograph of Republic of Turkey founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Discord server members are still free to "use any official Hearts of Iron IV in-game portraits, including those from after 1800, with the exception of prominent leaders of Nazi Germany," according to a Discord post attributed to game director Laszlo "Batya" Pieper (copied to Reddit). In the same post, Pieper notes that "Paradox never aims to review history or take positions on political figures, and we clearly handled that responsibility poorly."

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for recovering from the friend-of-a-spouse’s wedding you attended on Saturday while suffering from an acute case of Old Person’s Back. Unfortunately, the time for recovery has in fact passed, as you have already moved to the more immediately satisfying phase of assigning blame. Possible suspects: your swivel chair, your mattress, the PC monitor you had to laboriously re-box for transit, your sofa, and that most connviving, spine-bending bastard of all, light walking. Spoiled for choice, you sit down in your untrustworthy chair and begin to read some of the week’s writing highlights instead.

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Video Game Menu: The Game is all about everyone's favourite gaming pastime: pressing random buttons in the menus and seeing what they change

Tense platforming? Riveting, punchy action combat? Complex, thought provoking puzzles? Is this what we come to video games for? Of course not! It's for the menus, those sweet, sweet collections of pixels that let us tailor our experience and commit crimes like turning off the music so you can listen to a podcast you'll only half pay attention to. Well, that's at least what Video Game Menu: The Game will have you believe, a video game about video game menus (perhaps I didn't need to explain it to you, it's kind of in there in the name).

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"Do 665 runs if you want!": Control Resonant is getting a new game++ mode next month, and don't worry you happy snappers, a photo mode is on the way too

A developer's work is never done! On the very same day it launched, Control Resonant received a hotfix that tackled various complaints that were levied against the game's combat, making it slightly more manageable for those having a tougher time. While a fuller update won't be coming until next month, developer Remedy have outlined their plans for the next couple of updates, namely a New Game++ mode, and a photo mode.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

I'm sure I had at least three more sets of Saturdays and Sundays in my September box. That thief time has snuck in again and picked up all the unattended days. If you see him, give him a whack on the back and see if he'll cough them back up again, I'm not quite ready to crack the wax seal on October 2026.

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Arc Raiders is testing a PvE mode because "a large and growing group" refuse to hunt each other

Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios is bowing to the pacifists and trialing a PvE mode in their extraction shooter. If you play between October 13th and 20th, you'll be able to flick a toggle that means you load either into the traditional world of Arc Raiders, where human players vie for the valuable scraps left behind in a ruined world watched over by killer robots, or a slightly safer version where the machines are still deadly but the humans can't hurt you.

"We’re seeing a large and growing group of Raiders who come to the Rust Belt for the co-op and the ARC, not fighting with other Raiders," Embark say in the post announcing the trial. "That group has become a core part of our community, so it’s important we learn how to support them properly rather than leave them working around the game."

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LOVE alt delete is a Y2K horror visual novel where you use one AI chatbot to help you date another that, don't worry, doesn't use the nasty generative stuff

I would hope that for most of you it would not be a controversial thing to hear me say I hate generative AI. It stinks! It is rotting everyone's brains, and the people shilling it don't even care (see Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang saying he doesn't think it matters that kids aren't actually learning things like basic math when they use AI). But - please don't leave yet - it sure does make for some primo storytelling. Like, for example, in the upcoming LOVE alt delete, a psychological horror visual novel where you are beta testing a chatbot that you're trying to date.

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I definitely suck at Iron Bramble's metroidvania grappling hook platforming, but its cyber-gothic megastructure world has me hungry for more

If it ain't broke, why fix it? That seems to be the thought process behind Iron Bramble, the next game from the devs behind Rusted Moss. Like its predecessor, Iron Bramble is a pixel art metroidvania, one where you have a grappling hook that lets you swing about the place at rapid pace, only this time the setting is a "cyber-gothic megastructure" and you play a story-eating demon (?) woman in a world where humanity's flesh bodies have all died out and their souls now reside in metal, robotic husks.

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After eighteen years of jaggedy bowling, a new mod bestows GTA 4 with DLSS and FSR support

Rockstar’s modding guidelines, recently updated in advance of GTA 6, say much about how you can’t dream up unofficial story missions, or give the upcoming instalment a cheeky unofficial PC port. But they don’t say a goddamn thing about crowbarring DLSS, DLAA, and FSR into 2008’s Grand Theft Auto IV, which is exactly what ChunkLeChuck’s DLSS IV mod has gone and done.

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Following id layoffs, Quake Champions drops free-to-play nonsense and becomes a £9 game on Steam

After nearly a decade as a free-to-play game, Quake Champions is dropping all that nonsense in favour of being a nice and simple premium release on Steam. That means no more battle passes, no more loot boxes, no more premium currencies. They've even got rid of the store.

If you've played the game through any free events on Steam in the past, then you will be upgraded to a full version of the game automatically. And if you've bought any premium currencies in the past two months will be refunded.

However, while this is a welcome change, it should be seen in the context of Xbox's mission to fire 3200 developers.

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State of Decay 3 studio Undead Labs lay off "a significant number" of "exceptionally talented developers" after gaining independence from Xbox

Less than 24 hours after confirming they've managed to secure a future outside of Xbox by going independent, State of Decay 3 studio Undead Labs have announced that they've had to lay off "a significant number" of staff as part of that transition. The news follows a second round of mass layoffs this year at the studios still under Microsoft's thumb. Undead Labs were one of the five studios Microsoft announced plans to split with during an initial round of layoffs in July.

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Age of Empires studio World's Edge reportedly lose nearly half their staff and a new game project in mass Xbox layoffs

Further details have emerged of the impact that Microsoft’s Xbox consolidation and job cuts programme is having on affected workers. World’s Edge, the studio that effectively manages strategy megaseries Age of Empires, has allegedly been hit hard, with an unnamed but verified creative director posting on industry forum ResetEra that "just under half" of all staff had been let go in the process of moving from Xbox’s direct control to Activision’s.

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Stuntboost is a Tech Dech, skateboarding platformer all about doing sick flips on cardboard constructs in your bedroom, and it's out now

I was not a child that was built for skateboarding. Child me was a tad too wimpy to ever do anything so wicked cool as that. What if I scuffed my knee a little bit, or worse, embarrassed myself? So I did what any skateboarding curious child would do and bought a Tech Deck. And then I never learned how to get good at it. I am only slightly bitter about this adolescent failure of mine, yet all is not lost, for there is an entire video game out today that can let me experience such a feat digitally: Stuntboost.

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I taught an old man new tunes in rhythm-action shopkeeper sim Mr. Records, and now you can try the demo yourself

One of the bright spots of a miserably grey Summer Game Fest 2026 was Mr. Records, a mashup of rhythm-action autorunner and casual vinyl shop management by music game specialists Glee-Cheese Studio. I’ve since played a demo – which you can now try yourself on Steam – and was pleased by the apparent confirmation that it can induce that head-nodding, foot-tapping thing that rhythm games should. Big fan, usually, of games that force me into involuntary body movements.

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Bungie decide their destiny is to do more Destiny after all, pledging to bring back vaulted Destiny 2 campaigns while declaring that Marathon "needs to evolve"

Not long after announcing changes to how they'll handle majorly updating Marathon going forwards, Bungie have reversed course on their decision to stop developing Destiny 2 - a move they followed with layoffs. Promising to bring back vaulted bits of Destiny 2 and declaring that the series is "foundational" to their future. A future which they've kicked off with a lot of grovelling for forgiveness.

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Nighthawks review – a series of vignettes that sometimes excel but more often falter

Nighthawks, the 1942 painting by Edward Hopper, is generally described as portraying loneliness. The four people at the diner counter are dwarfed by the empty, cold openness of the street. But the inside of the diner looks warm. One man sits apart, but the other two patrons might be a couple, their hands close. The worker seems to be watching them, perhaps thinking of somebody he’ll return to after his shift. Nighthawks, the 2026 vampire RPG, takes this same sensation, connection in the middle of isolation, and plays it much less subtly. When it works, it manages to tell sub-stories that will stick with me like the glow of a friendly building late at night.

But it doesn’t always work.

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The Steam Frame’s first post-launch update speeds up charging and ungarbles a mic bug

Having launched though the same system of reservations and waitlists as the Steam Machine, the Steam Frame is still navigating that inscrutable void betixt "on sale" and "actually out." Nevertheless, it’s had its first software update, SteamOS 0.3.0, which brings – among other technical tidbits – a microphone bug fix, smoother controller tracking, and "substantially faster" charging to the VR headset. Yeah, nice one Valve. Would have been useful to have that last one when reviewing the thing on a deadline but whatever.

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Ahead of GTA 6, Rockstar warn modders against against making unofficial main story expansions, unauthorised ports and mods that combine GTA maps

There still might not yet be a release date for GTA 6's PC port, but Rockstar appear to be preparing for the massive uptick in mods for their games that'll inevitably accompany it. In new modding guidelines posted this month, the studio have expressly warned against a bunch of things modders could do, including building on established storylines from the base game, pulling over bits of older GTAs, and porting the game to platforms it's not hit yet.

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Silent Hill: Townfall review - an often inspired, if slightly lumbering trek into the fog

Once a fictional town in Maine, Silent Hill has broken containment and become a transferable oral history mechanism, offered to videogame developers worldwide as a way of investigating, even celebrating local culture. I'm still in two minds about whether this licensing outreach project, begun with Silent Hill f, is more inspired than it is vampiric. I picture Konami's invitation being pushed under the door of potential collaborators like Mary's letter to James in Silent Hill 2: "in our restless dreams, we see that town... let's touch base there sometime, expand our concepts further."

There's opportunity and peril for any studio who answers the letter: opportunity, because Silent Hill is an uncommonly rich way of thinking about the past, with its parallel realities, monster metaphors, and woozy grounding in both mysticism and psychoanalysis. And peril, because licenses have a way of engulfing licensees, forcing them into a straitjacket of tropes: fog, sirens, antagonists with geometric heads. Thankfully, Silent Hill: Townfall's creators Screen Burn (previously No Code) haven't gotten lost in the murk, though I don't think Townfall is their finest creation, not least because it's overreliant on stealth. Like the makers of Silent Hill f, they've taken what they need from Silent Hill to tell a story of their own.

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays - well, very early Sunday mornings - are for watching a whole queue of hungry wild animals pass your kitchen window, because a neighbour has decided to leave a bollard-sized catfood dispenser outside the block entrance while they're away on holiday. I'm pretty sure the neighbour's cat wouldn't eat from the dispenser even if there wasn't a badger wedged eagerly inside it. She's an aloof and disdainful creature, who hates going near the front door because that's where those stinky humans come from.

Will I try to feed the poor moggy, denied her dinner by a bunch of Farthing Wood rejects? No I will not, because I'm too busy reading articles about videogames, and things that are vaguely in the orbit of videogames. Here are a few of those articles. Look, please stop fretting about the cat. She's perfectly plump and glossy, whereas that badger looks like he hasn't had a square meal since August.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

It's well and truly not summer now. I'm writing this with the lights on because the screen's backlight is suddenly too bright for these eyes grown weak and lazy by the abundance of natural illumination.

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"If the player trusts you enough, they are not going to savescum": Why the makers of some of the best RPGs on PC want you to get used to failing

When it comes to RPGs, I am an irredeemable savescummer. I admit it. I'll slam F9 at the drop of a hat (perhaps the hat was dropped as a result of a failed dexterity roll. Unacceptable. Reload).

So when I recently found myself reloading a Divinity 2 save for the umpteenth time in a single session, I started to wonder - in a genre that's supposedly about storytelling first and foremost, why am I viewing botched persuasion checks as something to be studiously avoided? And why is it that I feel totally different about making a horrible mess of things in tabletop roleplaying games?

After all, some of my fondest memories of real-life roleplaying are moments of extravagant failure: sometimes of the bathetic stepping-on-a-rake-instead-of-slaying-the-necromancer variety, and sometimes of the much more grounded, human, and affecting type.

It all got me thinking: how do RPG developers think about player failure? Would they recognise the distinction between digital and tabletop that I'm describing? And can they convince a savescummer like me to renounce my ways?

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Helldivers 2 and Horizon Forbidden West delisted from Steam in the UK, Sony say they're "working with Valve to address the issue"

Helldivers 2 and Horizon Forbidden West have disappeared from the Steam store in the UK, something that's happened rather out of nowhere and looks like it might've even taken publishers PlayStation by surprise. Said publishers have issued a statement noting that they've already reached out to Valve to get the games back up.

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"They often don’t make it in the door": Wardogs studio Bulkhead check for "anti-crunch messaging" on prospective hires' social media, CEO says

Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer has revealed that the studio behind recent FPS hit Wardogs check the social media accounts of prospective hires for public criticism of crunch practices, and deliberately prefer to avoid bringing such folks on board. In the exec's view, devs working extra or long hours to get a game or update out of the door - otherwise known as crunch - "is going to happen at some point", even if the studio "always try and avoid it".

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Total War: Shogun 2's Complete Edition adds 50 minor factions in return for breaking your mods, but fear not, players who stick to the old version will get legacy DLC for free

If you recently glanced at Total War: Shogun 2 and thought "gosh, lovely hip-and-gable roofs on that miniature of the temples in Kyoto, but this could really do with oh, let's say 50 additional groups of quarrelsome swordsmen", then congratulations, Creative Assembly are adding "50+" minor factions in Total War: Shogun 2 Complete Edition, an all-in-one remaster hamper due to launch on 13th October via Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store and GOG.

This fancified and expanderised, 64-bit edition of the 2011 strategy game will include both the Rise and the Fall of the Samurai DLC expansions, together with updated lighting, shadows and textures. Also: "modernised controls", which makes me frown a little in the absence of details, together with 1440p and 4K UI scaling, and Japanese and Chinese voice acting and localisation.

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Lies of P's sequel is a Wizard of Oz homage called Wonders of O, going by a Neowiz trademark, and probably not a videogame based on a famous work of French erotica

Earlier this week, trademarks were spotted over at the European Union Intellectual Property Office for a videogame or videogame-related Something called 'Wonders of O'. The trademarks were registered by South Korean company Neowiz, who also happen to be the publishers of excellent puppet-powered soulslike Lies of P.

Given the shared title format, online sleuthyfolks have wasted no time identifying the project as the Lies of P sequel developers Round 8 teased back in 2024, alongside an untitled horror game.

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Valve considered making a new VR game for the Steam Frame, before tackling the "ludicrous" task of getting Half-Life: Alyx running standalone

Valve have sometimes – if perhaps not often enough to call it a grand old tradition – massaged interest in their hardware by pairing the kit with a new game. For the Steam Deck it was Aperture Desk Job, and for 2019’s jammy sod of a VR headset, the Valve Index, it was Half-Life: Alyx, a full-length City 17 adventure that reviewer Graham (RPS in peace) called “a masterclass of first-person shooter design.”

Still, people rarely want to take the same class twice, hence why padding-compacted eyebrows have been raised by Alyx again being a tentpole of the new Steam Frame headset – this time, to showcase the game running in PC-less, standalone VR. Why not make something new, even a smaller tech demo like ADJ or the Index’s own The Lab collection of Portal-themed minigames?

According to Valve staff, several of whom I spoke to prior to the Frame’s Monday night launch, there were several reasons why a return to Alyx was considered more valuable – even though a brand new VR game was, at least briefly, on the table.

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As Civilization 7 devs Firaxis prepare to unleash the nukes, the strategy game's latest update whips out a fresh take on the classic Real Earth map

The September update for Civ 7 arrives today, September 15th. It's got a handful of new maps, including a fresh version of the real life-mimicking True Start Earth playing field, and updates to diplomacy that'll stop you being automatically dragged into your allies' wars.

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"Valve is under the impression that this game is way sexier": Nighthawks devs claim vampire RPG has erroneously been slapped with Steam adult content label

Disclosure: Nighthawks writer Richard Cobbett has contributed articles to RPS, with his most recent as of writing being a Fable-themed feature from 2018.

Vampire RPG Nighthawks has been slapped with a mature content label just as its release beckons, in the latest high-profile instance of Valve's determination of what constitutes an adult game proving controversial. Developers Richard Cobbett and Wadjet Eye Games say they're working on convincing Valve to reverse the decision, which would allow the game to once again show up in Steam searches and no longer be banished to horny jail in some countries.

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Roblox plan to grow their absurd gaming empire even further by letting devs release games as "standalone apps", potentially via Steam, Epic, and GOG

Not content with pulling in daily active user counts roughly equivalent to the population of Japan, game creation platform Roblox are planning to let developers release their games "as standalone apps across mobile, PC, and consoles, with Roblox powering the technology and services underneath." The news comes via this year's Roblox Developers Conference. They are calling the new initiative "Roblox Everywhere", two words that can surely only ever be uttered in the form of a Machiavellian giggle or a scream of purest terror.

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A StarCraft open-world shooter that's "Deadwood in space", Diablo 5, and a new classic-ish World of Warcraft branch out this year make up Blizzard of reveals

Well, that report earlier this year was bang on the banana. A new StarCraft shooter, creatively dubbed StarCraft, has been announced for a 2030 release at this year's BlizzCon. Joining it among the headliners were Diablo 5 - which is due out in 2029 - and a new World of Warcraft branch dubbed WOW: Forever. Brave of them to name a Warcraft fork after the inevitable response which follows a WOW player revealing how long they've been playing the MMO.

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Moss developer Polyarc share that they're shutting down just two months after releasing a VR-less port of the beloved mousey adventure games

Another sad one today, unfortunately. Back in July, Polyarc released Moss: The Forgotten Relic, a new version of the original two games combined together that ditched its VR headset origins. Now, unfortunately, it sounds like the studio is shutting down, as the developer's LinkedIn page shared a message this week noting it's ending "active development."

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for realising that after playing The Blood of Dawnwalker, you've developed a craving for blackcurrant juice. There's none in the cupboard, so you venture out to get some, floating across the rooftops as a trail of mist as you go. You arrive at the supermarket, fangs bared and claws out. You parry and dodge attackers armed with trollies as you fight your way up the aisles. There it is. The sweet crimson nectar. You reach out to grab a bottle. A hand reaches out through the display and grips your wrist.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

I’m a big fan of these September weekends where I wake up and my bedroom has neither the humidity nor the ambient temperature of an Eden Project rainforest-o-dome. Autumn was previously my third favourite season at best, but I think we need to have a serious conversation about top two.

The additional thermal headroom to comfortably run a toasty graphics card also makes this one of the better times to play games. Including these, and also, the ones you’re going to tell us about in the comments.

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GTA 6 online mode appears to receive Rockstar's first public acknowledgment, via mention of in-development "32 player format" in legal docs

Up until now, Rockstar Games have kept mum about what plans they have for the future of Grand Theft Auto multiplayer once GTA 6 releases on consoles in November. Thanks to filings submitted by the studio as part of the final hearing in a legal battle over the firings of 34 developers last year, that silence appears to have been broken.

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EA's Saudi Arabian owners are reportedly considering forming an ubermegacorp by merging them with Savvy Games

Just over a month on from a consortium led by the Saudi Arabian government's Public Investment Fund taking over EA, in a buyout worth $55 billion, said new owners are reportedly considering merging the publishers with their existing gaming firm Savvy Games Group. The result would be an ubermegacorp to serve as a vehicle for all of the Saudi wealth fund's future video game-related biz.

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Shroom and Gloom is a positively mycelial roguelike double deckbuilder that's now out in early access

There are probably many jokes one could make about mushrooms being edible, and mushrooms being like, edible, man in relation to Shroom and Gloom, a positively mycelial roguelike deckbuilder where you roam spore-filled dungeons with two decks of cards in tow. I won't do that though because that would mean having to think of them, and like Edwin before me, I just don't have it in me. What I do have is the ability to tell you about Shroom and Gloom, which is out in early access today.

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No Man's Sky's 10th anniversary update will let you rule space stations, built floating orbital bases and go on holiday to the sun

No Man's Sky is a decade old. Let that sink in. No, seriously, you'll need plenty of water to survive the trips that the massive space game's 10th anniversary update allows you to embark on. It's now possible to get up close and personal with the stars that serve as suns in each system. Or, if the risk of fiery death's not your cup of tea, you can establish a new home by taking over as director of a space station or building an orbital base that floats among the stars.

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Cult classic shoot-em-up Touhou Koumakyou: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil has a remake out now

Touhou Project is Schrödinger’s shoot-em-up series: simultaneously a decades-running, 20-game strong (not counting spinoffs) multimedia juggernaut spawning one of the most active fan communities of the post-Trekkie age, and also some weeb curiosity that no-one I’ve ever spoken to has ever heard of. Either way, it’s been around for yonks, and has just seen the launch of its first official remake, of foundational 2002 entry Touhou Koumakyou: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

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Steam achievements for Persona 6, Fable, Stranger Than Heaven and a host of other upcoming PC games appear to have leaked

Uh oh. Steam achievement lists for a smorgasbord of unreleased and unannounced PC games appear to have leaked via trophy tracking site Exophase. Atlus RPG Persona 6, RGG brawler Stranger Than Heaven, and Thief: The Dark Project Remastered have all seemingly had their trophies blabbed by the leak, with more imminent releases like Control Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall, and Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve also affected.

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Trump regime's Tetris ripoff yanked from White House website after Tetris Company declare they "take copyright infringement very seriously"

Goodbye, Build the Wall. The Tetris-style game that the US government had stuck on the White House website as a way of promoting the Trump administration's commitment to brutalising and persecuting immigrants in the name of securing borders. After the Tetris Company hinted that they might be eyeing legal action, Build the Wall is gone, replaced by a far more palatable 404 error message.

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