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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13th century Mongolian courier sim The Legend of Khiimori becomes a battle against supernatural "poison of the earth spirit" with its Corruption Update

Up to this point, The Legend of Khiimori is a game I've primarily known as that pretty chill-looking Mongolian mail delivery game heavy on horses. Sure it's clearly got some survival elements to it, but the main draw has always - and from what Edwin's told me based on his time with it - been in galloping across pleasant plains.

However, with Khiimori's latest update, those plains have become infected by a supernatural scourge.

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Assassins Creed Black Flag Resynced's Kraken wheel will no longer be "wheely expensive" following the latest update, which will also teach you how to throw cash

Is that a blowpipe on your back or are you just happy to see me. Ah, it isn't a blowpipe, because you've used the latest in an ongoing flow of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced updates to hide your blowpipe so it doesn't ruin your outfit. No, I don't want you to throw me some money to make up for that joke not working, now that you've actually been through the tutorial for that mechanic and aren't saving up for an overpriced ship wheel.

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Microsoft will let devs bring more Xbox 360 games to PC in the coming years via backwards compatibility, leaked document suggests

Microsoft, they of the recent mass layoffs and reported Israeli military links, are reportedly set to offer devs a chance to bring their Xbox 360 games to PC as part of an ongoing backwards compatibility push.

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The Soulslike genre has grown stale after Elden Ring, and only FromSoftware can take it to strange new places

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m a cliché, a person first compelled to write about games because I slew Dark Souls’ Gwynn, Lord Of Cinder and sat quietly for a moment before thinking to myself, “Hit me, come on, hit me!”. No, I was not okay. But my understanding of games shifted in that tiny university room: they could be overcome, not just completed. FromSoftware’s dark fantasy lands, with their puzzle-box intricacy and dribbly residents, ushered in the "Soulslike" as other developers sought to cash in on masochists like me.

Here I am, still a masochist, still someone who adores a Souls and/or ‘like, but who stares at the offerings nowadays and thinks, "Please, someone hit me". These games have stagnated, to the point where it feels like we’re all waiting for FromSoftware to emerge from the fog and beat our asses in a way we’ve not quite seen before.

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Making Baldur’s Gate 4 would be "a great challenge" for Rogue Trader devs Owlcat, co-founder says, as the studio reiterate their commitment to CRPGs

I'm not saying you've got to be making a vaguely Mass Effecty RPG starting with Ex to be considered as a successor to Larian on the Baldur's Gate series, but it certainly doesn't seem to hurt. Exodus devs Archetype Entertainment were offered such a chance according to former studio head James Ohlen, and while The Expanse: Osiris Reborn devs Owlcat might not have been yet, their co-founder has said it would be a "great honour" if they were.

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American Truck Simulator trundles off to a land of enchanted highways and giant bovines with a freshly announced North Dakota expansion

Fresh off a trip to Illinois back in May, American Truck Simulator devs SCS Software have revealed another expansion they've got in the works. North Dakota's on the way as the big rig roadtrip continues to gradually make its way eastwards.

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for looking back at the week and honestly just thinking, yeesh, what are you doing, working in an industry that’s succumbed so deeply and so wilfully to moral decay. The publishers sold to executioners. The naked attempts at thought manipulation. The constant, miserable hum of distrust and paranoia produced by a technology that even bedroom modders, once the poster children of earnest DIY enthusiasm, are now using to cut corners and mislead players. God, it's awful.

Thus, in honour of my dire need to spend this weekend thinking about something else – hopefully that being enough time to reset and rediscover some of the medium’s lingering pleasures – here are some quality reads from the past week, absolutely none of which concern games.

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Manage a cafe by day, go to bed and fight in your dreams in a world without sleep by night in Hips N Noses

"Don't even talk to me before I've had my coffee that restores my lost memories!" This is a line I imagine that the general public would oft repeat in the world of Hips N Noses, a cafe management sim/Vampire Survivors-esque roguelike that's set in a world where no one but you can sleep, and everyone's suffering from a touch of amnesia.

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