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202 stories from Rock Paper Shotgun, last 28 days · latest 16:54 ET

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Fri, Oct 98

"It's not in the top five reference points": Afterworld isn't just a Fallout grand strategy game, say Paradox, it owes a lot more to the Bronze Age

Rock Paper Shotgun

When Paradox announced their post-apocalyptic North American grand strategy game Afterworld, I made the obvious comparison to Fallout. For this I should be chained to the fender of a war rig and pelted with scoops of radioactive dogfood, while being slowly driven through a pack of three-headed coyotes. In a new dev diary, Afterworld's content designer and "elder lore keeper" Luke Bean has gone into some detail about the game's setting, explaining that Afterworld owes more to study of the Bronze Age collapse than any Vault Tech malarkey. The continent's diverging tribes are also apparently far more estranged from and mystified by the "ancients" than their peers in Bethesda's RPGs. "The people of this world aren't Americans exactly," Bean began. "They are people who remember the Americans. America was an ancient empire to them, sort of the way the Roman Empire was for us, and they live in the shadow of that history. The people know that there was this time full of powerful and mysterious science. They think of the ancients - us - as people who could do anything they wanted with science. And so the central mystery of the past to them is if the ancients could do anything they wanted, why'd they all die? They must have wanted to die." Read more

Science FictionStrategy: Grand Strategy/4XAfterworld (2026)PC

Embrace your jobbing musician soul with a new Cyberpunk 2077 quest mod that comes with the option of playing all the wrong chords for Master of Puppets

Rock Paper Shotgun

Cyberpunk 2077 quest mods are still a relative rarity and the latest's aimed at folks who don't think getting to play that one gig with Samurai during the main story's enough jammin' in front of a crowd. It'll let you and brain-dwelling Keanu Reeves tour various venues throughout Night City and offers the option of adding in custom songs from your own playlist if you don't mind looking down to see that your fingers definitely aren't in the right place. Read more

CD Projekt REDXbox Series X/SMacMultiplayer Competitive

Wardogs season 2 deepens the sandbox shooter's capitalist hell by letting you bet cash on your own performance

Rock Paper Shotgun

"The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong," wrote the late author Damon Runyon, "but that's the way to bet." As someone neither swift nor strong, this does not bode well for my chances in Wardogs season 2, which sees the early access sandbox shooter adding – among many other things – a gambling system. Read more

First personPS5PCShooter

The Galaxies Showcase returns on October 15, with announcements from ZA/UM, Embark Studios, and Frontier Developments

Rock Paper Shotgun

I'm sure you already had it marked in your calendars, but it is that time of year again when the Galaxies Showcase takes one more spin around the internet. This year's stream will see new announcements Arc Raiders's developer Embark Studios, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies' ZA/UM, and Elite Dangerous' Frontier Developments, along with a whole host of others. The showcase itself is taking place on October 15th, and you can watch it on IGN's Youtube channel, over on Facebook, Twitch, and Musk's pits. And I do believe it will also be popping up at the top of our homepage during the stream, too. Think of it as us hanging a projector screen on the side of the Treehouse. Read more

Galaxies Showcase

“We're not getting any younger, and the world seems to be ending": Amanita reveal Machinarium 2, sequel to 2009's prettiest robot adventure

Rock Paper Shotgun

The dashing Da Vincis of Amanita Design have announced Machinarium 2, a sequel to the 2009 puzzle adventure young master John Walker called "a sort of beauty that games are almost never graced with". I haven't played the original Machinarium, but I have played Amanita's splendid living object platformer Creaks, and in general, I would quite like to go to bed with the entirety of their art team. So here's me sternly ordering myself to finally play Machinarium while we wait for the follow-up, which doesn't have a release date yet. But does have a trailer. Read more

Point and ClickMachinarium 2PS3Amanita Design

Draw maps of a vampiric lighthouse that defies logic in This Is Not For You, the latest horror game inspired by House of Leaves

Rock Paper Shotgun

This Is Not For You is, in fact, for some very specific kinds of people. It is for people who love drawing maps, and it is for people who love having their blood sucked by a non-Euclidean lighthouse. Somebody plot that on a Venn diagram for me. Created by Mexico-based studio Interactive Dreams, it's a dimension-defying maze game in which you play Ulysses, a shipwrecked sailor who strays into a strange lighthouse that's bigger on the inside and also, utterly incoherent. Walking north could take you south. Walking out of a bedroom could take you to the bottom of the ocean. Why yes, it is inspired by Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Here's a trailer. Read more

Single PlayerHorrorThis Is Not For YouSide view

Forza Horizon 6's first major expansion will pull up in January, now Playground Games just need to offer any kind of hint whatsoever as to what it'll look like

Rock Paper Shotgun

Forza Horizon 6 has, as is standard for the live-service racing series, settled into a steady rhythm of revolving weekly to-do lists and a gradual drip feed of fresh cars since it came out in May. Unless you're hopping on for regular bouts of driving with mates or just dig the grind, odds are most folks will have dipped in and out over the months, possibly only returning when a new season adds the likes of a drift attack mode to the open world. Horizon 6's first major DLC's likely to change that at least for a little while, and Playground Games have now revealed it'll be arriving in January. Read more

PS5Playground GamesRacing ArcadeSports

Timeloop metroidvania Echo Weaver is the brave game that locks almost nothing off and challenges you to break it

Rock Paper Shotgun

Writing about new 2D timeloop metroidvania Echo Weaver is tricky because most - possibly all - of what you need to complete it is available to you the very second you first wake up, deep in the charnelpools of an ethereal and shattered lunar civilisation. The plot in brief: you are a perpetually rewinding robot boy on a mission to work out what the hell happened. You'll explore overgrown biomes, investigate busted machines, run errands for a handful of scrappy, splashy-hued aliens, and conjure holographic flashbacks that cover the circumstances of your own creation. Developers Moonlight Kids stress that the only thing you really gain in the course of all this is knowledge. There are a few upgrades to gather, but no core skills to unlock. Instead, it's all there for you to learn, whether by reaching a tutorial area or just by hitting buttons at random and messing with terrain fixtures. As such, my telling you about abilities really does risk ruining it, much like explaining the behaviour of celestial bodies in Echo Weaver's great influence, Outer Wilds. So if you're strongly inclined to buy the game – my verdict after four hours: a vivid and thoughtful, freeform Metroidy puzzler with refreshingly minimal combat and a few rough edges - maybe get your feet wet before reading on. Read more

MetroidvaniaPS5Story RichAkupara Games

Thu, Oct 813

You can now sign up to playtest the genre-bending Pony Island 2: Panda Circus, and while you're at it the original is free for a few days too

Rock Paper Shotgun

I love an everything seasoning video game. You know, the kind of game where it's five different genres at once, somehow, all of which builds into one cohesive vision? It's not an easy thing to pull off, but Daniel Mullins seems to be quite good at it, as evidenced by Inscryption, and as suggested by the upcoming Pony Island 2: Panda Circus. Which, by the way, now has a playtest you can sign up for. Read more

PCPony IslandIndiePony Island 2: Panda Circus

Dave the Diver is wrapping up its DLC plans with an aquatically appropriate Subnautica 2 collab

Rock Paper Shotgun

I am not a huge fan of collaboration DLCs, mostly because my curmudgeonly self can only see them as attempts at multiple companies trying to profit off of one another's things. But I do have to admit that yes, the just announced collab between Dave the Diver and Subnautica 2 does make total sense. Certainly more sense than the Godzilla one from a couple of years back. Read more

Family-friendlyRoguelikeNintendo Switch 2Action Adventure

The Witcher 3 Remastered's latest patch brings some bloomin' improvements to the game's bloom problems, amongst other lighting buffs

Rock Paper Shotgun

A dev's work is never done, and certainly not with a big ole revamp like The Witcher 3 Remastered. CD Projekt Red put out a new patch today bringing in a range of fixes for the RPG, perhaps most notably sorting out some of the game's lighting issues, amongst other, PC-specific related problems to do with your GPU. Read more

Xbox Series X/SBandai Namco EntertainmentPS5Nintendo Switch

Volatiles takes the piece-by-piece map building of boardgames like Betrayal at House on the Hill and slaps a gory survival shooter on top of them

Rock Paper Shotgun

I do love a boardgame where you reveal the tiles as you play. Sure, I also enjoy turning over all the pieces at the beginning of a game of Settlers of Catan and taking in all the tiles and trying to work out a strategy based on which resources are clustered near which port, but that's not the same as a game like Betrayal at House on the Hill, where you all start together in one single room and unveil the architecture of the house tile by tile as you explore. You have that same strategic eye, looking at the function and threat each room holds, but because the house is still being built, your plan can't become fixed. You have to reassess the layout of the building with each new piece and, of course, when you hit the moment in the game where one player betrays you the real danger arrives, all that planning now has to be twisted to oppose the new threat. Volatiles is an action game that plays with that same sense of strategy and mystery. It starts with you waking in a strange facility with little sense of what brought you there. The scientists around you say they're helping you, but they're the same people who keep dunking you into a sensory deprivation tank and forcing you to fight the monsters in your mind. It's just possible they don't have your best interests at heart. Read more

ShooterPCStrategyTeam Instant Defeat

Prospice: Anomalous Logistics is SnowRunner except instead of lengths of copper pipe, you're transporting the body parts of eldritch gods

Rock Paper Shotgun

Viewed from the front, my truck, with its winch and thick off-road tires, could be straight from SnowRunner central casting. Sure, it would an off-off-Broadway production of SnowRunner, with the polycount and texture resolution of a PS1-era take on the driving simulator, but I'm looking at a vehicle that is ready to struggle through thick mud and deep water; a petrol-guzzling workhorse. Then I walk around the side and glimpse the load it's hauling: a giant severed hand, freshly cut from the corpse of a buried god. Prospice: Anomalous Logistics has all the markings of SnowRunner, MudRunner and Spintires games, the driving simulators with a focus on overcoming difficult off-road terrain, but it's seen through the lens of eldritch horror and the new weird. Read more

SimulationPCProspice: Anomalous LogisticsHorror

Lazare’s Sacrifice is a narrative deckbuilder made with Gwent's creator about avoiding the guillotine during the French Revolution

Rock Paper Shotgun

The sort of beautiful thing about triple-A games is that sometimes they have the resources to make an entirely new game within them. That was how Gwent was born, an in-world card game you can force Geralt into play that was eventually spun off into its own, fully-fledged thing. I imagine we'll be seeing a revamped version of it whenever The Witcher 4 arrives, but considering that's 2028 at the earliest, may I suggest making your bed with Lazare's Sacrifice, a narrative deckbuilder set during the French Revolution that's being made in collaboration with Gwent's lead designer Damien Monnier. Read more

StrategyNintendo Switch 2Action AdventureIndie

Rockstar-hunted GTA 6 leaker seemingly strikes again, showing off series' most plentiful helping of onscreen johnson since San Andreas starred Carl

Rock Paper Shotgun

The GTA 6 leaker or leakers that previously shared enough alleged gameplay to prompt Rockstar Games and Take-Two to begin the legal process of hunting them down appear to have returned, with a new 25 minute clip of them up to various hijinks in the game. A fair chunk of those hijinks have been gotten up to while protagonist Jason's in the buff, his bare bum and wiggling weenie out for all of Leonida to gawk at. Read more

Single PlayerModern DayAction AdventureOpen World

I enjoy how Hellraiser: Revival's 'real-life' bondage club makes the rest of Hellraiser: Revival feel kind of embarrassing

Rock Paper Shotgun

Not being much of a kinkster, I'm the wrong writer to assess how Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival portrays BDSM. I can't say with any authority, for example, whether developers Saber Interactive have succeeded in distinguishing consensually practised fetish from otherworldly torture. But I will say that the faithful-seeming sex club you visit early on does a fine job of underlining the ridiculousness of Hellraiser, and of so many violent horror videogames with 'sexual themes'. Read more

Xbox Series X/SMad Head GamesBoss Team GamesHorror

Xbox aim to wring more cash out of the games they've not cast into oblivion by launching new licensing arm and handing Minecraft to ex-Meta monetisation lead

Rock Paper Shotgun

Xbox, currently in the midst of multi-round mass layoffs as part of a plan to let a final total of 3200 people go, have announced a new arm of their business which is firmly aimed at milking more cash out of its blockbuster game series via licensing deals. That likely means more stuff along the lines of the recent money-making Minecraft movie and Fallout TV show, though apparently not money-making enough to convince them their game-making business didn't need slashing to the bone. Meanwhile, Minecraft developers Mojang have a new boss who previously spent a decade working on Facebook at Meta. Read more

Xbox Game StudiosMinecraftPCVirtual Reality

Star Wars Galactic Racer will soon welcome larger podracing parties, with multiplayer group size limits set to double in a future update

Rock Paper Shotgun

I've admittedly not delved into any multiplayer action in Star Wars: Galactic Racer since the gates to its racetracks were opened to the masses early this week. Look, I needed a quick breather after ramjetting my way through 40 or so hours of it for review. It looks like I might have to try and convince my colleagues to hop on for an RPS Boonta Eve classic soon though, as devs Fuse Games have already announced plans to up multiplayer party sizes so you can invite six mates along instead of three. Read more

RacingFuse GamesSecret ModeStar Wars: Galactic Racer

AMD's handsome FSR 4 upscaler is coming to handheld PCs this year, though Steam Deck support could take longer

Rock Paper Shotgun

Handheld PC games could be set for a bit of visual spit 'n' shine, as AMD have confirmed plans to bring FSR 4 – their newest, prettiest upscaling tech – to the kind of dinky Radeon APUs used by portables. AMD Computing & Graphics exec Jack Huynh, speaking to Korean media including The Elec, detailed a two-pronged approach: they’ll make new APUs built with native FSR 4 support, as well as a special version of the upscaler that can run on older integrated graphics chips, both by the end of 2026. Read more

HandheldPCSteam DeckFSR

Star Wars Zero Company studio start to bring back devs furloughed prior to launch, with "more than half" of previous headcount reportedly returning to payroll

Rock Paper Shotgun

Star Wars Zero Company developers Bit Reactor have begun to put some of the developers they furloughed prior to the game's release back on payroll. Thus far, the number of staff on payroll at the studio has reportedly returned to "more than half" of what it was prior to the furloughs, with Bit Reactor boss Greg Foertsch asserting that they hope to "eventually bring as many people back as possible". Read more

PS5Strategy: Turn-Based StrategyBit ReactorBird view / Isometric

Wed, Oct 710

Airborne open world Atmosfar gets an early access release date and a trailer full of flying islands, cloud cruisers and sky taxis

Rock Paper Shotgun

There was a time when open worlds made of flying islands really seemed like the New Hotness. I guess The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the obvious trendsetter, but my mind always returns to Bossa's ill-fated aerial MMO Worlds Adrift. I have fond memories of a preview session in which a developer and I tried to rebuild a wildly rolling airship in a hurricane. We failed, but a good time was had plummeting and dying. More recently, we've had Lost Skies (another Bossa joint, born of Worlds Adrift's crashlanded remains), Bohemia's Hytales-ish Everwind, and the curiously fungal Aloft, none of which appear to have slipped the surly bonds of Earth and touched the face of the Steam Top 20 Most Played. Still, the zeppelin fanciers among game developers keep trying to make fetch happen. Here's a trailer for Atmosfar, which now has an early access release date - 29th October. Read more

Survival & CraftingMultiplayer CooperativeAtmosfarOpen World

Anime racer Screamer no longer demands you retrain your fingers, with a fresh patch adding single stick drift controls

Rock Paper Shotgun

Both James and I dug anime-styled arcade racer Screamer when we gave a verdict on it earlier this year, but one aspect that raised both of our eyebrows was the game's unorthodox twin stick drift controls. Usually, steering and sliding in racing games are managed by the one singular controller stick, keeping things simple and intuitive, but Milestone opted to make you kick out the tail with a second stick instead. It feels fine once you get used to it, but is the kind of thing that could bounce folks off who're not down to rewrite years of muscle memory. The good news for such folks is that Screamer's latest patch adds in the option of single stick sliding in the hopes of making the adjustment a little easier. Read more

Screamer (2026)

Hackers steal millions of Discord IDs and email address in "deliberate, multi-stage attack" on security service Double Counter

Rock Paper Shotgun

Gaming chat app Discord has suffered another user data breach, with a suspected 1 million email addresses stolen alongside (potentially many more) user IDs and IP addresses. While Discord was not targeted directly, third party security service Double Counter have reported a "deliberate, multi-stage attack" wherein hackers spent nearly six hours poking around their infrastructure before the vulnerability was closed. Read more

Discorddata breachPC

Lynchian noir mystery Silver Pines takes the best bits from horror, the middling bits from Metroidvanias, and the worst bits from adventure games

Rock Paper Shotgun

I want, and not even especially deep down, to like Silver Pines more than I do. Wych Elm’s debut game – a Twin Peaks-inspired, neo-noir detective mystery that quickly repaints itself in survival horror red – is endearingly unusual, an angular mishmash of different genre staples that, nonetheless, stays coherently glued together by its expressively moody visual style and an intriguing missing-person tale. It’s just... well, put it this way. I’m only about three hours in, and if I have to backtrack my slouching private dick through one more thicket of locked doors and collection puzzles, the next crime he’ll be investigating will be the aggravated assault of a desktop monitor. Read more

Team17Nintendo SwitchMetroidvaniaXbox Series X/S

My horror that 32GB RAM has become the norm is exceeded only by my contempt that 7.28% of you have over 4TB free hard drive space

Rock Paper Shotgun

This week, Steam published another one of their monthly hardware surveys, offering a granular market assessment based on optional and anonymous contributions. I don't read a lot of these. Perhaps if I did, I'd be less shocked to discover that 32GB is now the most popular RAM setup, with 42.22% of respondents choosing it, as against 37.82% for 16GB configurations, and 6.47% for 8GB. Read more

SteamRAMHardwareValve

"It changes the notion of safety for the enemies, but also for you": Rainbow Six Tactics' destruction undoes the classic dynamics of flanking

Rock Paper Shotgun

During the hands-off presentation of Rainbow Six Tactics at Gamescom, destruction obviously featured. Walls were breached, cover was blown up, and masonry was peppered with rounds. It looked excellent, but it was also familiar from other turn-based tactical games. Considering the focus of scenery destruction in Rainbow Six Siege, I wasn't sure how the team were actually advancing the tech beyond what we've seen in games like XCOM 2. There was one moment in the hands-off demo in particular that had me worried it was basically a graphical nicety. Sniper Glaz fired a high-powered round through two interior walls, headshotting a terrorist on the other side. The round left visible holes in the walls, but beyond being a neat bit of set redressing, it wasn't anything that we couldn't have seen in other turn-based tactical games. When I spoke to the developers, I wanted to know if there was anything else happening that I wasn't perceiving, something about the destruction that made it distinctly Siege-inspired. Read more

Ubisoft ParisBird view / IsometricUbisoft EntertainmentXbox Series X/S

Alleged footage of Xbox's cancelled Perfect Dark reboot shows a parkour-heavy chase scene and the summary execution of fruit

Rock Paper Shotgun

In-development footage of the Perfect Dark reboot from The Initiative, which Microsoft cancelled as part of their mass layoffs in July last year, has reportedly been uncovered. It shows off a couple of minutes worth of what looks to be texting of shooting and explosion mechanics, plus a chase on foot through a facility that's falling apart. Read more

Xbox Series X/SBlockbusterPerfect Dark RebootShooter

"Your body is foreign territory": Small-town mystery puzzler Patience is a Virtue explores power and vulnerability by way of a unique conversation system

Rock Paper Shotgun

The English language can be a way of communicating, and it can be a way of subjugating. Patience is a Virtue protagonist Louis knows this intimately. In this "cozy-meets-creepy" conversation puzzle game from teaisfortoby!, some interactions require you to answer only using the words spoken by the other party. The first such chat in the demo is with Louis's boss at the local grocery store. She wants him to lock up early. All Louis has to do is assent. But to assent, he must reassemble her phrasing into a coherent, five-word response, grappling not just with elementary grammar but phantom questions of tone. Being the first of these puzzles, it's an easier one, but the constraint is rather suffocating nonetheless. Louis is chronically ill and neurodivergent, and his difficulty talking back reflects his lack of privilege. These words don't belong to him. They are alien objects he must painstakingly bolt together on demand. Read more

Patience is a VirtueStory RichMysteryPuzzle

GTA 6 won't be playable on PC at launch via Xbox's cloud streaming services, Microsoft exec indicates while refuting exclusivity deal report

Rock Paper Shotgun

Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball has refuted a report that the console makers have secured an exclusive cloud streaming deal for GTA 6 at launch, which is noteworthy because the tech could provide a means to play the crime sim on PC prior to a native port arriving. Read more

Single PlayerModern DayAction AdventureOpen World

Games industry investors are "sitting on the sidelines waiting for obvious slam dunks", says Undead Labs boss, with labour costs a key worry

Rock Paper Shotgun

Last month, State of Decay developers Undead Labs bought their own independence from Microsoft, after a deal with unnamed buyers fell through. The staff created a new holding company, Full Measure, to facilitate the buyout. Layoffs followed. Now, studio boss Philip Holt has offered an inside look on the transition, together with thoughts on the wider landscape of videogame industry investment. Short version: he thinks there's still money washing around, but the fatter cats are very much looking for "obvious slam dunks". Read more

Multiplayer CooperativeXbox Series X/SPCMultiplayer Competitive

Tue, Oct 617

ROTETRA is Tetris where the blocks fall from four different sides at once and lord almighty I don't have the brainspace to be good at it, but it sure is fun

Rock Paper Shotgun

Look, I'm pretty reasonable at Tetris. I'm not one of those grand masters or anything, but I can both have fun and get a score that would at least make my hypothetical nephew impressed (assuming he also wouldn't be in the Roblox mines). Sometimes, though, a take on the beautiful block game rocks up that makes me question any such skills I may have. Today, that is ROTERA, a block stacking game in which you must manage tetronimos falling from four directions at once. Read more

ROTETRAArcadePCPuzzle

You and I both know you're not sleeping well in this economy, so have a gander at Sheeps, a roguelite about counting sheep pouring out of a strange portal

Rock Paper Shotgun

I've never really been able to do that whole counting sheep thing to get to sleep. Just doesn't work for me. Instead, my brain prefers to latch onto something embarrassing I said when I was 14 and then imagine what the people who heard that must think of me, conveniently forgetting that 15 years have passed since then and only I would ever remember such an inane moment of a life. Segue! Here's a going about counting sheep called, you'll never guess it, Sheeps, and it's a roguelite so it's actually more interesting than that, I promise. Read more

SheepsArcadeRoguelikeIndie

Cancelled MMO spin-off Borderlands Online is playable once again, and the team behind the unofficial project thankfully didn't use any genAI to get it running

Rock Paper Shotgun

Where there's a will (and some talented, incredibly passionate modders), there is always a way in the world of video games. Today said will has manifested in the form of Borderlands Online, an MMO spin-off that was planned to be released exclusively in China as a free-to-play game. A build of that game was found a year ago, and now, it is playable. Neat! Read more

PS5Borderlands OnlineMultiplayer CooperativeNintendo Switch 2

Take out some monsters and then turn them into take-out in the post-apocalyptic tycoon survival sim Midwest 90: Rapid City, out in early access next month

Rock Paper Shotgun

Surely Midwest 90: Rapid City isn't the first simmy, Fallouty game where you turn mutated monsters into grub and serve it up to customers in your own diner, is it? None come to mind right now. Let's not make any assumptions all the same, we can still appreciate what the tycoon survival sim set in a monster apocalypse is doing: letting you run a roadhouse that makes meals out of all the horrific creatures that want to kill you in an attempt to make ends meat. Yes, the pun's intended, I'm a professional writer, for heaven's sake. Read more

Midwest 90: Rapid CityIndiePCStrategy

"Your word is undeniable truth": Can't be bothered to find evidence in Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy? It's fine, because no matter what, you're always right

Rock Paper Shotgun

If the promises that Owlcat are making of Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy aren't just PR fluff, it sounds like we might be in for a good bit of fun. In Dark Heresy, you are an acolyte of the Inquisition, meaning you have to look out for that titular heresy, which actually means that you're a space cop. Boo to that in the real world, obviously, but it's a narrative device that can make for some interesting storytelling, and according to the game's narrative designer, that storytelling manifests in being able to wrap up investigations with hardly any evidence. Read more

Multiplayer CompetitiveIndieRPGRPG: Turn-based

Jagex pull Runescape trailer and apologise for genAI use after complaints about six-fingered knights, pinning the blame on a "trusted external partner"

Rock Paper Shotgun

I'm really tired of writing about genAI today. It's my first news shift with RPS, and within a few hours, I've written three stories that are solely about genAI use by modders, indie outfits and now, somehow, Jagex. Still, the horrors persist, and so I must continue reporting on them. As part of RuneFest 2026, Jagex unveiled a new trailer for RuneScape 3's Hoard of Dragons expansion, featuring the Dragon Slayer II quest, arriving in 2027. That video I linked to is a reupload by another channel, as Jagex very quickly took down their own upload of the video due to the trailer's use of genAI imagery being pointed out (thanks, Kotaku!) Read more

RPGAction AdventureiOSJagex Games Studio

Sonic Team's Takashi Iizuka dismisses the apparent inevitability of remakes, saying "you’re essentially providing the same experience again"

Rock Paper Shotgun

At this point, you can't even open the Steam front page without stumbling over remake after remake (sometimes remasters, just to spice things up). To say remakes are in vogue would be an understatement: they're an almost guaranteed moneymaker that can prey on nostalgia and a lust for a 'better time' to deliver games that can offer some ephemeral reproduction of the feeling of childhood, thus protecting from the Scaries of living in the current time. And, unless you're Square Enix having the Final Fantasy VII Remake series juggle both a new story and the original as a metanarrative, remakes usually grant that sweetest of temptations: the same thing you like, forever. However, one person who seemingly takes issue with this is Takashi Iizuka, general producer of the Sonic series. In an interview with Automaton - which also touches on Sonic’s growing multimedia empire and Sega’s experience with Sonic Racing: Crossworlds as their first live service game - Iizuka suggests the blue hedgehog won’t be getting any remakes or remasters anytime soon, citing the concepts' lack of originality and still-high development costs. Read more

PS3Sonic the HedgehogSingle PlayerPC

Question passengers with tarot-like cards in Dreadline Express, a train mystery with the most intriguing conversation system I've played since Her Story

Rock Paper Shotgun

In Dreadline Express, you play a character who awakes in the cabin of a carriage on the last human train. It hurtles down the track, bathed in the red light of an alien sky. At the windows of the carriage, eldritch tentacles press themselves against the glass. A voice crackles at the speaker, it announces that you've been selected by lottery. You're to be sacrificed for the greater good. The message signs off "All hail the Supreme Engineer". It's an ominous beginning, but the best is still to come: Dreadline Express has a mechanic that quickly made it my favourite thing I played at Gamescom. Read more

HorrorShorelines GamesFirst personExploration

Star Wars Galactic Racer review: now this is frenetically fun podracing with a totally unforgiving streak

Rock Paper Shotgun

Becoming a boost junkie in arcade racers that offer such potent bursts of extra oomph is usually only a matter of time. Star Wars: Galactic Racer is no different. The hooks have been in deep. The vast majority of the builds I’ve pulled together in runs through its singleplayer campaign have lived and died in their effectiveness by the two types of boost you can cram into your landspeeder, speeder bike, or skim speeder. The first, afterburner, is less potent, but can be deployed at any time once it’s built up. The other, ramjet, is more powerful, but must be squirted out in whatever length of continuous chain you can muster without either taking your finger off the deploy button, overheating to the point your ride explodes, or running into some other obstacle which forces you back to regular speed. Both are separately upgradeable as you progress through one of the game’s rogue-lite style runs through a tourney of various Galactic League events staged across a decent variety of planetary biomes. Read more

Secret ModeAction AdventurePCSingle Player

PlatinumGames CEO pauses a discussion on Stellar Blade's Bayonetta costume crossover to casually imply more Bayonetta may be on the way

Rock Paper Shotgun

It's been a bit since Bayonetta has had any time in the spotlight. 2022's Bayonetta 3 released to pretty good reception (although did earn ire for its depiction of the witch herself), but all's been quiet on the Umbral front since. With creator Hideki Kamiya having left PlatinumGames in 2023, it seemed even more unlikely for the series to continue. A ray of hope appeared in an unexpected place, though: Stellar Blade. That game's Switch 2 port, due for release next month, will feature four new costumes based on characters from the Bayonetta series, demonstrating that Platinum are willing to do something with it (well, that and letting her be added to Sonic Racing: Crossworlds alongside Minecraft Steve and Spongebob.) Read more

Multiplayer CooperativeBayonettaPCPS3

PlatinumGames CEO pauses a discussion on Stellar Blade's Bayonetta costume crossover to casually infer more Bayonetta may be on the way

Rock Paper Shotgun

It's been a bit since Bayonetta has had any time in the spotlight. 2022's Bayonetta 3 released to pretty good reception (although did earn ire for its depiction of the witch herself), but all's been quiet on the Umbral front since. With creator Hideki Kamiya having left PlatinumGames in 2023, it seemed even more unlikely for the series to continue. A ray of hope appeared in an unexpected place, though: Stellar Blade. That game's Switch 2 port, due for release next month, will feature four new costumes based on characters from the Bayonetta series, demonstrating that Platinum are willing to do something with it (well, that and letting her be added to Sonic Racing: Crossworlds alongside Minecraft Steve and Spongebob.) Read more

Hack & SlashNintendoNintendo SwitchNintendo Wii U

Car Park Capital's cities are utopias of public transport networks and green living, or they were before I got done with them

Rock Paper Shotgun

The streets of Baldtown City are nearly empty of traffic. It's not that it's a ghost town: up and down the pavements there are crowds of citizens bustling to and from work. They pile into subways, queue up at bus stops, and enter and leave the town by a regularly-running intercity metro service. Their city is woven with affordable, clean, public transport. As a representative of big auto, whose one joy in life is bringing people the freedom of car dependency, Baldtown city will have to change. Car Park Capital is a management game that looks to be straight out of the 90s, born from the same Bullfrog sensibilities that gave us Theme Park and Theme Hospital. Your one goal is to turn the eco-friendly cities before you into petrol-dependent, car-brained, suburbia-living smogfests. After all, can you imagine a world without cars? Read more

Bird view / IsometricPCStrategy: BuilderMicroprose

Retro platformer series Dizzy is back for a new game from its original creators, who are really happy for you to know it's made with AI

Rock Paper Shotgun

For British people who were actively playing games in the late 80s and/or retro enthusiasts looking back at that period of the industry, the name Dizzy might ring a bell (it doesn’t for me, but what can I tell you, I’m 24). A prolific platformer series starring a bipedal egg, it spanned formats from the ZX Spectrum to the NES and Game Gear, and managed sixteen(!?) releases between 1987 and 1992 - before slowing significantly past the millenium. Still, that hasn’t stopped its creators, the Oliver Twins, from trying to bring it back in the current era, and so came the announcement of another new Dizzy game during their talk at last weekend’s Play Expo in Blackpool. Read more

Single PlayerPlatformerCodemastersiOS

After 12 years, Ultra Street Fighter IV gets not one, but two connection-stabilising rollback netcode mods aaaand they're both made using Claude

Rock Paper Shotgun

Street Fighter IV, the game that basically revived the fighting game genre back in 2009 and gave birth (not literally) to a new subset of players lovingly referred to as ‘09ers’, saw its final iteration in 2014’s Ultra Street Fighter IV. While it wasn’t the most perfectly balanced game, it’s remembered fondly by its players and is viewed by many as the last vestige of ‘honest Street Fighter’. It’s also burdened with being limited to delay-based netcode rather than the more modern and more stable rollback netcode, but this is something modders are attempting to fix. Using genAI. Sorry if I got your hopes up. To quickly explain why the different netcode matters, delay-based netcode handles latency issues by variably delaying inputs to match unstable connection, while rollback netcode removes this delay by accepting inputs immediately and then reversing the game state (rolling back) if the connection instability causes inconsistency between players. All of this to say, rollback has become the industry standard for its stability since the mid 2010s, leaving delay-based to rot in input-eating hell. Read more

Xbox 360Single PlayerUltra Street Fighter IVArcade

Mon, Oct 58

Noematica is a lucid dreamer's "n-dimensional" take on The Sims that proudly boasts it will never ever gouge you for DLC

Rock Paper Shotgun

Over the course of my illustrious tenure as RPS news mangler, I have seen many Simslikes. Tragically cancelled Simslikes from publishers better known for feats of tactical incest! Corrosively telegenic Simslikes suggestive of a paved-over burial ground! Cottagecore "don't call me a Simslike" Simslikes! And now, finally, Simslikes that appear to have been conceived in the Red Room from Twin Peaks. The game I'm referring to is Noematica: Digital Dollhouse from Asphodel Cybernetics, which exhorts you to "behold the humble Noem! Beguiling and silly-pilled, fully customizable, monstrous or adorable: with an n-dimensional vector space of fantasies and memories." Here's a trailer - get beholding. Read more

PCLife SimulationNoematica: Digital Dollhouse

Claims that genAI speeds up PC ports of classic games are either "false" or missing the point, says Banjo Kazooie: Recompiled developer

Rock Paper Shotgun

The software developer behind an unofficial PC version of N64 platformer Banjo-Kazooie has posted an impassioned screed about the usage of generative AI tools for rush-job PC ports of classic games. The dev in question is DarioSamo, a member of the modder group who released Banjo: Recompiled earlier this year. He argues that the idea that generative AI allows for faster porting is either outright "false" or simply misguided, explaining that decompiling a game – that is turning the original machine code into human-readable code – in order to release on modern platforms is supposed to be an exercise in actually understanding and preserving how that game was made. Read more

Action AdventureMicrosoftSingle PlayerQuiz/Trivia

GTA 6 writer says the series has never had "much focus on national politics" beyond GTA 4's war on terror, and the latest entry won't get "too specific"

Rock Paper Shotgun

Details about and dev chatter concerning GTA 6 continue to drip out as part of the marketing push towards its console launch in November. This time, some of the aspects of it I'm most intrigued to see how Rockstar have handled whenever they deign to bring it to PC have been discussed - how they've approached satirising the societal climate of America in 2026 through allusions to politics and the American dream. Read more

ShooterPS3Grand Theft Auto VPC

"Coders will never forgive me for this level": Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 has a rotatable "fleshmetal" puzzle map that drove its own development team crazy

Rock Paper Shotgun

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is something far worse than war. There is: a level that is basically a huge, spinning lock full of tentacles, with your Space Marine or Sister of Battle protagonist naturally serving as the key. Auroch Digital's Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 launches next week, and I've been chatting to the game's principal designer Matt Bone about some of the more "creative" environments in store. It's a sturdy rule of thumb that all the best ideas in gamedev are the ones that make your colleagues want to fill your trousers with sea urchins. Bone certainly appears to have achieved this with the map comfortingly known as Vicious Circles. Read more

Xbox Series X/SDevolver DigitalFirst personAuroch Digital

This week in PC games: Star Wars: Galactic Racer, Hellraiser: Revival, and a throwback tycoon game about turning utopias into carparks

Rock Paper Shotgun

Happy this week, all! I regret to inform you that the videogame developers have been at it again. Sometimes, I find that the promising new releases distribute themselves evenly throughout the week, like butter perfectly spread over just the right amount of toast. And sometimes, as with this week's haul, they congregate weirdly on Thursday and Friday. It's as though they were trying to get away from me, like rats ambushed in the pantry, pawing frantically against the weekend's closed and bolted door. Haha! Hahahaaha! There is no escape, cheese-filching squeakmonsters! Down you go! Down you go into the Maw! If you think characterising new videogames as a rodent infestation is unkind, I quite agree. Rats are sociable, adaptable, and admirable creatures who deserve better than to be compared to stupid videogames. In any case, I am only being macabre because this is the month of Halloween – hence the conspicuous abundance of horror in the list below. Read more

New PC games

RuneScape 4 is a new Unreal Engine MMO which reportedly grew out of a planned Dragonwilds expansion, though it's still a long way off

Rock Paper Shotgun

A fourth entry in the RuneScape series of MMOs has been announced by developers Jagex at this year's RuneFest. It's going by the obvious placeholder name of RuneScape 4 for now, is being developed using the Unreal Engine, and is still a decent way off. Read more

Action AdventurePoint and ClickJagex Games StudioMultiplayer Competitive

"We opted out of some things really early on": How the small team making No Law plan to make it look as big as Cyberpunk 2077

Rock Paper Shotgun

If you've watched the trailers for No Law or the tech demo that developer Neon Giant showed off at Unreal Fest earlier this year, it would be easy to believe the game has a similar scope to CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077. After all, both games are open-world RPGs set in cyberpunk cities. Set in a beautifully realised mediterranean city that is somehow equal parts Lisbon and Kowloon Walled City – and with corner shops that are as stuffed with riches as the one down the road from my flat. But, the developers will happily tell you where they've scrimped and saved. Read more

Xbox Series X/SNo LawFirst personAction Adventure

Sun, Oct 41

The Sunday Papers

Rock Paper Shotgun

Sundays are for having the first lie-in in a month. No trips to visit family, no waking in unfamiliar beds, and, best of all, no having to wait until the hosts are up before you can get started on breakfast. I will be snoozing deeply in my own particular mattress before having a plate of toast and scrambled eggs at a time that I deem appropriate. Once that's all polished away, I will return to bed with a fresh cup of coffee and peruse the week's best writing at my own leisure. What's that? You want me to share? Fine. You can have a read of them when I'm done. Read more

The Sunday Papers

Sat, Oct 32

The Other One: Jordan Magnuson's Game Poem jam is a fascinating collection of chimeras

Rock Paper Shotgun

Sometimes I Wonder About The Other Me is a 2D platformer created by "small game" developer Luis "Ludipe" D az Peralta, whose other works include A Place For The Unwilling. It's broken into a handful of single screen maps. On each screen, there's a Mario-brand exclamation mark block that burps a text fragment, forming an overarching monologue that begins with the title phrase. As you move between screens, you come to a signpost pointing left and right. Heading in either direction leads to a splitscreen area, with the player controlling duplicate characters. As you guide your charges rightward, one half of the screen flakes away to darkness. The remaining character returns to the starting screen, there to wonder anew about the Other Me. Read more

gaming-newsindie-games

What are we all playing this weekend?

Rock Paper Shotgun

October, we meet again. You slip through my bedroom window as a cold draft on a crisp morning, both making my covers more welcome and the long walk to the kitchen for coffee that much harder. Still, your arrival signals the end of a month stuffed with game releases and, for me, at least, a lot of weekends of travelling. So your arrival is not unwelcome. Read more

communitygaming-news

Fri, Oct 26

Desktop and handheld prices going out of control means PC bargain hunts lead to my old enemy: gaming laptops

Rock Paper Shotgun

I don’t know if memory shortages have permanently killed off the concept of 'cheap' gaming PCs, but they have at least beat it into a coma. On the desktop side, inflated RAM, SSDs and graphics card prices continue to inflict karmic pain for our years of "It's cheaper to build it yourself" smugness, while formerly affordable handheld PCs are either suffering 40%-plus jackups or launching above £1K from the off. And the Steam Machine ! The poor, square Steam Machine . Every few weeks, possibly in denial, I’ll skim through the shops to see what budget games kit actually looks like in this day and age. Across the last five or six rounds, little has changed: the entry point into decent, more-or-less current-spec 1080p play remains stuck in the low quadruple figures, particularly if you’re fully new to PC ownership and need to factor in a monitor and peripherals. There is one exception, assuming you don’t fancy your luck on the secondhand market , but giving it a hands-on appraisal means confronting an ancient hardware foe of mine. And you all know how little I like to have my prejudices challenged. Still, research suggests that yes, this truly is the most gaming PC you can get for under £999. So, um. Here it goes. May...maybe gaming laptops aren’t so bad. Read more

pc-hardwaregaming-hardwaregame-discovery

"Support modders, not AI": Total War: Warhammer 3 mod "deliberately corrupted" by its own creator in protest of AI-infused unauthorised reuploads

Rock Paper Shotgun

Cheesed off with unauthorised reuploads of their Total War: Warhammer 3 overhaul which make use of AI, the main modder behind SFO: Grimhammer 3 has opted to purposefully corrupt the mod. The aim is to ensure that the modders maintain more control over where and when the latest version of Grimhammer 3 can be grabbed, with creator Venris threatening to make the mod private if the situation doesn't improve. Read more

game-devcommunitygaming-newsindie-games

RAM shortages are only getting worse and will last until at least 2028, Micron boss declares from atop a mountain of money

Rock Paper Shotgun

Another day, another company declaring that the current memory crisis driving RAM prices through the roof is far from over. This time it's Micron, one of three firms - Samsung and SK Hynix are the others - which have been accused of worsening the RAM crisis via price fixing by a US lawsuit . Read more

pc-hardwaregaming-hardwaregaming-industry

AI-generated Fallout: New York browser game full of utterly cursed faces slapped with Bethesda cease and desist, its slop prompter claims

Rock Paper Shotgun

In perhaps the least surprising Fallout news since Raul from New Vegas confirmed that ghouls with dodgy knees don't enjoy sneaking, the person behind an AI-generated browser game dubbed Fallout: New York has claimed to have recieved a cease and desist message from Bethesda parent company ZeniMax. Their creation, if such a term fits, was generated using Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 tech. Read more

gaming-newsgaming-industryai-generated-content

PUBG extraction shooter Black Budget canned less than a year from reveal, after Krafton decide it won't "deliver an experience players could enjoy over the long term"

Rock Paper Shotgun

PUBG: Black Budget , an extraction shooter spin-off of Krafton's battle royale, has been cancelled after just under a year of closed alpha testing. Krafton cited a lack of faith that Black Budget's "current direction" would lead to "an experience players could enjoy over the long term" as the reasoning behind their call to end development. Though, they insisted PUBG Studios have learned valuable lessons that'll serve future games. Read more

gaming-newsgaming-industry

If game developers steal one thing from No Law, I hope it's the open-world game's ridiculously detailed and realistic corner shops

Rock Paper Shotgun

After seeing open-world imm-sim No Law last month, I'm sure the developers would hope I was gripped by memories of missions you can approach stealthily or in all-out action , the sci-fi combat where you wield slow-time grenades and cyberpunk implants, or even the powerful kick you can use to boot open locked doors. But, no, what I keep thinking about is the corner shop where protagonist Grey Harker, an ex-soldier on a murderous rampage to take down Port Desire's four corrupt mayors, stopped to pick up some batteries. Read more

game-devgame-discoveryindie-games

Thu, Oct 19

Reigns and Card Shark developers Nerial are closing down, laying staff off while the founders go "back to our roots"

Rock Paper Shotgun

Reigns and Card Shark developers Nerial have announced that they're shutting down or at least, "entering hibernation mode", following discussion with their parent company Devolver Digital. By the sound of things, the entire team are now "seeking new opportunities", as is the parlance of studio closures. Read more

game-devindie-gamesgaming-industry

RetroSpace offers a huge sci-fi playground for inquisitive space janitors, but I'm not that System Shocked by the tools at your disposal

Rock Paper Shotgun

In my time as a videogame partaker, I have crawled through approximately three billion airvents. I may well have crawled through more vents than you've had hot dinners. As such, any videogame that can get me excited about loosening a barred hatch and hauling my heavy ass into a square tunnel is doing something right. The Wild Gentlemen's new sci-fi immersive sim RetroSpace gives pretty fair vent. It hides them all over. You'll walk along a dilapidated, meandering corridor and your eye will be caught by a certain combination of shadows, flirtatiously screened by pipes. 'Can I fit behind there?' You ask yourself, and lo, you have revealed a shortcut to the head engineer's office. Elsewhere, switches peek from behind stacks of luggable crates, and bent guard-rails draw your eye to a footwide ledge leading around the next pillar. In general, RetroSpace does a nice job of squirrelling secrets into even the smallest chambers, and if the secret is very often a "rocket doughnut" or other inventory-clogging flotsam, sensing the prize and snuffling after it is a thrill. I hope the thrill will intensify as RetroSpace goes on, perhaps leaving a few of its obvious influences behind. Read more

indie-gamesgame-discoverygame-dev

Control Resonant's New Game++ update also squashes some of my least favourite bugs, including the one where magic doors change my trousers

Rock Paper Shotgun

Trippy hack 'n' slash sequel (and, for the benefit of anyone planning for this year’s Advent Calendar guessing game in the RPS Discord, my current second-favouritest game of 2026) Control Resonant has a big old update out today. As declassified by Remedy , it not only adds the pledged New Game++ mode for plus-deficient game replayers, but makes absolutely bloody loads of smaller bug fixes and quality of life tweaks. Read more

game-devgaming-news

I'm not sure the "AI" in my chair's lumbar support actually counts as AI, but it has been smart enough to help my posture

Rock Paper Shotgun

Note from James, 02/10: We've heard your complaints that some of the wording in this piece - a lot of which, if I'm honest, was added/changed by me in the edit - overstates the chair's potential health benefits. The HBADA’s X7 chair may reduce back pain during long periods of sitting at your desk but it will not literally fix your spine. While it is and will remain the RPS way to indulge in some occasional hyperbole, we don't want to suggest that swivel chairs cure physical conditions, so I've clarified these bits to avoid confusion. AI is everywhere, exhausting to keep up with, and increasingly perceived as harmful to games. But that’s mostly generative AI; the more limited, less media-scraping and energy-hungry breeds of artificial intelligence can still play a harmless, maybe even useful role, especially on the hardware side . Even if it finds itself in some unexpected places, as is the case with HBADA’s X7 chair . While AI-powered lumbar support sounds like the kind of gimmicky nonsense that’s become all too common in 2026, I’ve been using an X7 for a week, and it’s... surprisingly effective? Definitely for straightening up my posture, which I'm hopeful will help with my recurring back pain issues. It’s been a very pleasant surprise. Read more

gaming-hardwarepc-hardware

Capcom aren't just running out of Resident Evil games to remake - they're banking on it, with a mysterious "crossover" planned when the timelines collide

Rock Paper Shotgun

Capcom have done a brisk trade in Resident Evil remakes this past decade. They've gone back to formula with Resident Evil 2 , Resident Evil 3 , and Resident Evil 4 , not just bumping up the resolution and revarnishing the cutscenes, but writing new variations on the old survival horror fables. There's a Resident Evil: Code Veronica regurgitation due in 2027, and a Resident Evil 0 resurrection allegedly to follow in 2028 . The problems with this strategy are perhaps expressed by my previous sentence's struggle to come up with extra synonyms for "remake": sooner or later, Capcom are going to run out of original games they can credibly overhaul. Including the forthcoming or rumoured projects, they've only got Resident Evils 5 and 6 left now before they hit the "modern era" inaugurated by Resident Evil 7, the game that introduced the fancy RE Engine used by the remakes. Read more

gaming-newsgaming-industrygame-dev

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past's setting "felt like a really natural way to go", CD Projekt Red story director says, while parrying my attempts to breach the DLC's guard

Rock Paper Shotgun

Ever since The Witcher 3 's decade-on expansion Songs of the Past was revealed not to be a windup nor a case of empthy rumourmongering, I've been eating up as many details about its story as CD Projekt Red have offered. The truth is that, outside of showing off the setting and a few of the characters Gerry'll chat to, they've kept their lips pretty tight. On one hand, I get wanting to keep narrative surprises intact, but on the other, it'd be nice to see the studio be less vague about this extra chapter of a story folks assumed they'd already seen through to a satisfying end a decade ago. So, in addition to scouring other interviews about the DLC, I flung my own questions at CD Projekt Red story director Marcin Blacha, who worked in that role and as a lead writer on TW3 back in the day. Read more

gaming-newsgame-dev

"We want people to try and outsmart the game": No Law aims for Arkane-style reactivity within a dangerous walled city

Rock Paper Shotgun

Port Desire, the hemmed-in city setting of immersive sim No Law, is hard to place. At points, it reminds me of walking around Lisbon. It shares that Portuguese city's verticality, where hill-straddling streets shouldered by colourful houses and corner shops can feel like tiers on a wedding cake. The strong sunlight and bursts of foliage reinforce the mediterranean vibes. Yet, the port city's structure and history is much closer to Kowloon Walled City, the ungoverned Chinese enclave that existed within British-owned Hong Kong. Through the 1900s, with the British government taking a hands-off policy to the tiny district and the Chinese government exercising no control over its citizens, Kowloon became the most densely populated city on earth, with 33,000 citizens living in just 2.6-hectare borders. With virtually no official police presence, the city attracted anyone looking for a less-observed, less-regulated life – gangs, refugees, and a surprising number of unlicensed dentists. As one of No Law's creative directors, Tor Frick, tells it, Port Desire is very similar. Not specifically the dentists bit, more the general, isolated lawlessness. Read more

game-devimmersive-simindie-games

"Xbox is not for sale" despite all of the layoffs and neat repackaging of studios within Microsoft's corporate structure, CEO Asha Sharma says

Rock Paper Shotgun

Despite recently having overseen the laying off of 268 staff in the second of multiple rounds of cuts planned for this financial year, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has denied that their are plans to sell Microsoft's gaming division. The bloodletting at Xbox in recent months has not only seen workers let go, but the place of studios within the company's structure being altered. Rather than lots of studios with their own degree of independence, Xbox have been parting ways with many studios and consolidating what remains under a small number of arms led by the bosses of the likes of Activision and Bethesda. Read more

gaming-industryxboxmicrosoftgaming-news

The Division developers Massive are now "the global brand" in charge of Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon, alongside a new Ubisoft dieselpunk MOBA

Rock Paper Shotgun

Tom Clancy's The Division and Star Wars Outlaws studio Massive Entertainment just got, er, massiver. Parent company Ubisoft have announced that they're now "the global label" for several other series, including Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell alongside at least one original game, World War fantasy MOBA March of Giants. Read more

gaming-industrygaming-news

Wed, Sep 3011

First-person RPG Queen's Domain pitches you against an island of gorgeous freaks with naught but a flying sword and infinite throwing daggers

Rock Paper Shotgun

Fantasy RPG Queen's Domain is frequently likened by certain other websites to From Software's King's Field games and The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind , so I'm going to put my nose in the air and forcibly compare it to something else. Looks like, errrrrr, a first-person Ico with Mayan architectural influences, maybe a touch of Final Fantasy's Ivalice period here and there. It's set on an island with shorelines you could compare to Halo's Silent Cartographer level, if you rubbed your eyes with breakfast cereal. Have I thoroughly confused you? Don't worry, here is a trailer. Read more

indie-gamesgame-discoverygame-dev

"NO GAME NO LIFE": Grasshopper Manufacture have leapt from the jaws of NetEase and gone indie again

Rock Paper Shotgun

No More Heroes and Killer7 developers Grasshopper Manufacture have split from erstwhile parent company NetEase, founder Goichi "Suda51" Suda has announced. NetEase bought them back in 2021, as part of the acquisition of Gungho Online Entertainment. Now, they're going indie. According to Suda, the change reflects "a strong desire to deliver titles in an even wider variety of styles to video game lovers everywhere". Read more

game-devindie-gamesgaming-industrygaming-news

The importance of being earnest: How Marvel Tōkon's Deadpool trades ridicule for fighting game reverence

Rock Paper Shotgun

Deadpool’s a weird character. Like fellow mutant Wolverine, Wade Wilson is a trained killer whose primary superpower is a healing factor that lets him recover and reform from any wound, even if bisected or decapitated. Unlike Wolverine, Wade knows he’s in a fictional medium, be it a comic book, movie, or game, and physically can’t stop quipping about that fact and referencing things in and out of his world. It’s up to the writer whether this is sheer coincidence (as in, he’s genuinely just psychotic and his insane ramblings happen to be the truth), or a true meta awareness granting him power over narrative itself. This is a trait that Marvel T&omacrkon: Fighting Souls handles smartly, which in a way is surprising, because it usually makes him quite annoying. In most appearances, Deadpool references everything — nothing is safe. Marvel editorial, art of all mediums new and old, assorted real-life celebrity drama, specific stories from comics’ past (not just Marvel, either), and more I can’t think of right now; all of it ripe fruit for Wade to riff on in one of the many jokes-per-minute spouting from his scarred mouth. This became true of the vast majority of his comic runs, once the meta awareness, fourth-wall-breaking became a central part of his character identity, and defined non-comic appearances like High Moon’s 2013 Deadpool game and Ryan Reynolds' (admittedly, kinda perfect) portrayal from the 2016 film onwards. No, X-Men Origins: Wolverine does not count. Read more

gaming-newsgame-dev

Crimson Desert's first expansion, Charting the Unknown, delayed so Pearl Abyss get more time to polish and stabilise the red pudding

Rock Paper Shotgun

A little bit of extra waiting is in order for Crimson Desert 's first proper expansion, Charting the Unknown. Originally set to arrive midway through October , it's now been moved back by a couple of weeks to allow for some extra fine-tuning of the thousand or so funky open world activities devs Pearl Abyss have jammed into it. Read more

gaming-newsgame-dev

Come play the flute and reshape the very earth in Songs of Glimmerwick, a magic school RPG from the creators of Eastshade

Rock Paper Shotgun

It has perhaps never been easier to join a witch or wizard school without being a Guy Who Rhymes With Bally Trotter. Academies of the occult abound in videogames. True, there has yet to be an amazing Little Witch Academia adaptation, and I'm still waiting for that Arbitrary Metric take on Naomi Novik's A Deadly Education, to say nothing of Failbetter's take on Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites, but in the short term, I've been enjoying the demo for Songs of Glimmerwick , which goes on sale today. Read more

indie-gamesgame-discovery

Crusader Kings 3's By God Alone expansion offers plenty of holy hijinks, even if your polyamorous Pope doesn't get divorced three times in one day

Rock Paper Shotgun

My very soul has been cleft into pieces on this day. January 3rd, 902 AD. First, my Christian faith fractured in twain. I stand in Rome, head of the Roman Rite and now the leader of the Catholic world. My neighbours to the east have chosen to walk a different path, transforming their Greek Rite into a new Orthodoxy followed by the Byzantine Empire. It’s a brave new world in Crusader Kings 3 ’s By God Alone expansion , made even tougher to face by the three additional wounds I gained right at the moment of the split. All three of my wives have divorced me, serving their papers within seconds of each other. Taken alongside the betrothal that my fourth wife-to-be broke not too long before the schism, it really stings. Sure, I’m the Pope and thus should be celibately devoting myself to God, but a breakup’s a breakup. It’s not all consecrated bread and wine when you’ve managed to end up on Wikipedia’s list of sexually active popes thanks to an utterly hilarious bug. Read more

gaming-newsgame-dev

"Ultimately, we asked 'why are we doing this?'": the creators of Arc Raiders wildly underestimated how hard it is to make a live service game

Rock Paper Shotgun

Arc Raiders developers Embark heavily underestimated the challenges of creating a full-blown live service game, executive producer Aleksander Grøndal has conceded in a new interview. The extraction shooter launched with an ambition for monthly post-release updates that ultimately proved untenable, resulting in an exhausted and unhappy team who were "constantly overshooting our capacity". Read more

gaming-industrygame-devgaming-news

All the RPS Supporter rewards for September 2026: Model ships, maze cities, and the tyranny of content

Rock Paper Shotgun

In case you missed it, September happened. Technically it’s still happening, and we have one more exclusive post for RPS Premium Supporters coming this week, but this time I fancy doing the monthly rewards roundup within the month being rounded up. Lest armoured date pedants infiltrate my flat with breaching charges, and start hitting my shins with their pernickety sticks. Thanks again to all our Supporters, preem or otherwise, and turbo double-thanks to anyone who filled in our Supporters survey . This has granted us some immensely helpful guidance on how to steer Supp rewards in the future, as well as some important feedback on the site more generally. You’re all, and I don’t say this about a lot of people, da best . Read more

gaming-newscommunity

"I always see it kind of like a triangle": The surprising challenge of making the perfectly-sized cave in Satisfactory expansion Core Values

Rock Paper Shotgun

When I first learned about Core Values, the upcoming expansion to factory automation game Satisfactory , I didn't grasp the scale of the challenge developer Coffee Stain had set themselves. 'So, the game is set underground now?' I thought. 'I'll just stick up some more lights and make the same factory I always have.' Yet, as I covered yesterday, that won't be possible. For a start because you'll need to use new logistics tools to connect your factory buildings – conveyor belts aren't gone, but they're nowhere near as useful as they once were . Another major difference, though, is a design problem for the developers: how to make a perfectly-sized cave. Read more

game-devgaming-newsgame-discovery

"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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

indie-gamesgame-devcommunity

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Tue, Sep 2911

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Valve is changing Steam's homepage discounts and events section to go the way of the algorithm to get you to look at, and buy, obviously, more games

Rock Paper Shotgun

Go ahead and boot up Steam for me. Underneath the ad banner for whoever paid to be there for that day and the featured and recommended sections, you'll find a section titled discounts and events. As it currently stands, this section is hand curated by Valve to highlight some site-wide relevant sales. But Valve have been changing Steam up a lot in recent years, namely a widening of every aspect of it , and now this discount and events section will move away from being curated to being "more dynamic and personalized for each customer." Read more

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"You will not be using belts": Satisfactory's first expansion isn't the same game set underground - there's a whole new set of resource-moving toys to master

Rock Paper Shotgun

When you start factory automation game Satisfactory you awake in a drop pod plunging towards the surface of an alien world. In its first expansion you'll be heading a little deeper. Set entirely in an underground biome, Core Values sees you trying to build a thriving mining operation in a world that is limited in space and light, where even navigating its tunnels can become a challenge. Though, the team are keen to emphasise that Core Values isn't just Satisfactory with the lights turned off. It will be bringing a whole new set of logistics tools (and new challenges with them), so getting resources from mining point A to refining point B won't always be as straightforward as just sending them down a conveyor belt. Read more

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After trading space babies and running people over with a truck, Strange Scaffold want you to organise a haunted library in Something is Wrong with the Library

Rock Paper Shotgun

"At the time, I didn't immediately think my boss was filling the walls of our place of business with corpses," so opens the reveal trailer for Something is Wrong with the Library, the latest game from the studio that is most hard to pin down genre-wise, Strange Scaffold. Though, considering they've made games about isekaing people , trading space babies on the stock market , and cuck-, I mean, Clickolding , perhaps the way you pin them down is "games for freaks and weirdos." Read more

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Set up your own ramen bar and explore a voxel cyberpunk city in the slice-of-lifey Nivalis Nights, out now

Rock Paper Shotgun

Has the pre-GTA 6 autumn exhaustion hit you yet? There's already been a lot of games this month, but this train stops for no one, especially with Rockstar's behemoth looming over it all. Today is no different, as after a long wait and several delays, Nivalis Nights is finally out, bringing you back to the cyberpunk world of Cloudpunk once again, only with a restaurant managing slant to it all. Read more

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The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past sounds like it's mirroring Blood and Wine in being "a lot dreamier" than a "bread-and-butter Witcher story"

Rock Paper Shotgun

While the cover's flown off The Witcher 3 Remastered today, September 29th, the wait for the RPGs elusive extra expansion goes on until next year. I've had rather mixed feelings on the decision to extend Gerry from the River's tale beyond the execellent ending offered by the Blood and Wine DLC thus far, something that CD Projekt Red's general tight-lippedness when it comes to dicussing story details hasn't helped. They have at least now dropped some crumbs as to how the new expansion will stack up tonally compared to its peers and what it provides space for that the existing game didn't. Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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The Tower of Zeldaga is a free retro mash-up of Zelda and Druaga in which you rescue Ganondorf from some evil blonde queen

Rock Paper Shotgun

The recent screening of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake has proven a thing of existential horror for many grey-haired Zeldenthusiasts. Is that you, Link? What have they done to you, boy? Why do you look like a possessed doll ? Where have all your sharp edges gone? Eek, I can see individual divots on Epona's neck. Rest easy, traveller. Let us play the titular Ocarina and warp back to the good old days. No, not the heyday of the N64 – that three-pronged controller was an instrument of the Devil. I mean the real good old days, when Link looked like a cockroach and hills hadn't been invented yet. But oh, what's this? We have played the Ocarina wrong and messed up the spacetime continuum. We have somehow generated a version of NES-era Zelda that overlaps with another long-lost game, Namco's 60-floor maze RPG The Tower of Druaga - itself a huge influence on the original Zelda games. It appears that Prince Ganondorf has been abducted by the evil queen Zeldaga. That harridan! Time to go questing for some keys. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Mon, Sep 285

CD Projekt release full updated Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered system specs, including ray-tracing and path-tracing requirements

Rock Paper Shotgun

CD Projekt have released the full list of PC system requirements for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered , a free upgrade for the base edition of the grizzled and cantankerous fantasy action-RPG. This covers both the previously announced minimum PC specs and the recommended, ultra, ray-tracing minimum, ray-tracing recommended, and path tracing configurations. Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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"We didn't want to demonise fetish or BDSM": People aren't dying in horror game Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival because of what they do in the bedroom

Rock Paper Shotgun

Early in horror game Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, the character you play, Aidan, and his partner Sunny, are pushing the bounds of the sex they enjoy together. Already into BDSM, they discover a puzzle box that, when solved, will allow them to explore a new extreme of their fetish play. However, when they unlock the box it summons a set of torture demons called Cenobites and Sunny is torn to fleshy pieces and sent to hell. From that violent beginning, Aidan bargains with one of the demons of torture to find a way to bring Sunny back to life and be made whole. Not your average walk in the park – or, if it is, I am deeply sorry for you. (My park is great. There is a duck pond). Nonetheless, it is a good starting point for a horror game based on Clive Barker's horror series. Still, when I spoke to Hellraiser: Revival's developers I wanted to know if Sunny was being punished for enjoying her fetish. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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." Read more

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Sun, Sep 271

The Sunday Papers

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Sat, Sep 266

TALON TOWERS is a Fumito Ueda-coded parkour platformer about hopping around massive structures while avoiding falling to your foggy doom

Rock Paper Shotgun

If your game immediately makes me think of any of Fumito Ueda's in any sort of way, the likelihood is that I am to play it. There are only so many Ueda games (three, by my count) and there will only be so many (hopefully more that upcoming fourth one isn't the last), so when something rocks up that fits into that vibe like TALON TOWERS, a parkour platformer set on dilapidated structures that stand high above an infinitely stretching fog, I'm going to be pulled in. Read more

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Suplex and shatter glass enemies after being in prison for committing a cardinal crime in the psychological horror beat 'em up Brokensides

Rock Paper Shotgun

Just hearing that a game has mashed two genres together does not generally excite me. It's a useful shorthand, maybe, but there's only so many roguelike deckbuilders I can take. Once in a while, however, a mashup comes along that makes me think, "well that doesn't seem right," and my ears perk up like a dog that's learned how to spell walk. Today, that mashup comes in the form of Brokensides, a psychological horror beat 'em up where you play as a violent sea bunny recently freed from imprisonment after committing a Cardinal Crime. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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). Read more

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Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty's Chimera tank boss fight was apparently so complex it took two years of "reiterating over and over" to get it right

Rock Paper Shotgun

My first thought when I played through the Chimera tank boss fight in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty was probably something along the lines of, "wow, this sure looks expensive!" It's incredibly flashy to start off with, this Ghost in the Shell-esque tank chasing after you in a big set piece moment that ultimately culminates in it unwillingly hunkering down in one spot for your killing convenience. And as it turns out, such a big, boisterous boss fight takes a lot of work; two whole years, in fact. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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What are we all playing this weekend?

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Fri, Sep 255

Hytale's Chapter 1 update is all about them goblins, adding its first proper boss and "handcrafted" dungeon in October

Rock Paper Shotgun

After months of smaller patches, Hytale ’s early access phase is getting its inaugural Chapter update, confirmed release date and all. Chapter 1 is out on October 12th, and it’s a bundle of (mostly goblin-related) firsts: chiefly the game’s first "handcrafted" dungeon, a gruesome underground lair, and Hytale’s first bonefide boss fight, against a flamethrowing gob-king. Read more

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I got whomped by an Ork horde in Total War: Warhammer 40,000, definitely on purpose, to teach you a lesson about positioning

Rock Paper Shotgun

Demo sessions are often terrible ways to see a game, doubly so at conferences. You want to sink into a game at your own pace (and with unbroken access to fresh cups of tea), not get dropped into the middle of the action, hoisted up again 20 minutes later and plonked into another section of a game. However, that's the nature of these things sometimes and it suits some games more than others. Total War: Warhammer absolutely does not suit it. Grand strategy games are built for armchair generals. Not just any armchair, either, a wingback one where the leather on the arms is nearly worn through where said general has rested their elbows in deep contemplation. They're not games made to be played in short bursts. As such, I can't really speak to Total War: Warhammer 40,000's end quality from its Gamescom demo, but perhaps it says something that after an hour where I played 20 minutes of the battle tutorial, 20 minutes of the campaign tutorial, and 20 minutes in a scenario where my Space Marine army faced an overwhelming assault from an ork horde, I still came away keen as the baked beans found in an Astra Militarium ration pack to play the full game. Read more

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Colourful JRPG Armed Fantasia has been cancelled, four years after a successful Kickstarter campaign descended into delays and lawsuits

Rock Paper Shotgun

Armed Fantasia , a JRPG pitched as a spiritual successor the PS2-era roleplaying series Wild Arms – and led by former Wild Arms producer Akifumi Kaneko – has been cancelled. Digital Bros, the parent company of Armed Fantasia publishers 505 Games, announced in a financial statement that it was one of several games for which "The Group decided to discontinue development," the others being a sequel to F2P strategy game Battle Islands and action RPG Directorate Novitiate, which had already revealed its own demise in May. Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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." Read more

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Thu, Sep 2411

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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The future of Marathon includes a fungus-filled Perimeter, a social hub, and a shift "beyond extraction"

Rock Paper Shotgun

Marathon will be "growing beyond extraction." That's what Bungie say in a new blog post outlining the future of the shooter , after announcing earlier this week that they'll be bringing back vaulted Destiny 2 campaigns . " Marathon launched as a cutthroat, winner-takes-all PvEvP experience," they explain. "We want to preserve that thrill for the players who enjoy it, while creating more ways for others to experience the world and find the level of challenge that works for them." Read more

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Once upon a time The Blood of Dawnwalker's timer mechanic was a lot tougher, and it's because of all those pre-release complaints that it was made easier

Rock Paper Shotgun

Right, I need you lot to pipe down for a minute because you're making games less interesting. Last week, The Blood of Dawnwalker director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz shared that the game's timer mechanics may be dropped in future installments of the vampire ( eventual ) series. This sounds like a boring decision to make if you ask me, as it's the thing that most interests me about the RPG . And now, according to Tomaszkiewicz in a new interview, the timer mechanic was actually toned down based on its early reception. Read more

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Control: Resonant is only just out of the door, and Remedy have already put out a hotfix with some stun-buffing combat tweaks and more

Rock Paper Shotgun

Control: Resonant is out today, and wouldn't you know it, there's already a hotfix. Though, day one updates aren't exactly new in this day and age now, are they? This particular patch looks like it's laser targeted at comments made in reviews about the game and how dang tough some of its enemies are, to which James would like you to know he says, "Pfft, wimps." Save your snark for him, not me! Read more

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Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader's final DLC is now coming in December, with an "unsanctioned psyker" companion who cries tears of blood

Rock Paper Shotgun

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader 's story-concluding final DLC has been pushed back to December, developers Owlcat have announced. At the same time, they've introduced the companion around which this last expansion, Processional of the Damned, will revolve. Her name's Stella. She's an "unsanctioned psyker", a "miracle sent by the Emperor himself", and is prone to shedding tears of blood. Read more

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Steam Frame-ready VR rhythm game Beat Saber is adding hand-tracking and a punchy new mode in its "biggest update ever"

Rock Paper Shotgun

I’m not saying that the reveal of Beat Saber ’s " biggest update ever " was timed to coincide with a swell of VR interest induced by the new Steam Frame . But I am going to infer it, without evidence, before immediately moving on to what the sweaty sword-slashing rhythm game can expect when said update lands in Spring of 2027. First and foremost is an entire new mode, Flux. This sees Beat Saber ditch the sabers and dial up the beating, demanding your own bare hands punch, prod, and slap their way through notes. A Beat Saber Unarmed build, basically. Looks fun! If probably no less tiring. Read more

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Bethesda say new underlings Obsidian will retain their "distinct" creative identity, despite no longer being as free to work on their own creatively distinct series

Rock Paper Shotgun

Obsidian will remain a "distinct" Obsidian with their own "creative identity and strengths", despite no longer operating independently of fellow Xbox-owned RPG makers Bethesda. That's according to Jill Braff, president of Bethesda and Microsoft's casual games division, in a memo sent to staff at the former following this week's layoffs and reorganising of studios at Xbox. Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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 . Read more

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Wed, Sep 236

The Steam Machine handles Control Resonant capably, but the promised Steam Deck support is a letdown

Rock Paper Shotgun

Control Resonant is almost everything I wanted from a Remedy-flavoured character action game, including several sub-things I didn’t initially believe it would pull off. However, one particular ambition has failed to come good: the ability for me to play it in bed. Despite previously expressed plans for Steam Deck support, alas, Resonant needs to render just a bit too much paranturally skew-wiff Manhattan for it to comfortably run on Valve's handheld. The bigger, beefier Steam Machine is a different story, which is good, because otherwise this would be a very short article. But with Control Resonant lacking any public SteamOS hardware compatibility ratings just a day before release, consider this a warning: it’s a damn fine game, on almost any modern PC that isn’t a Deck. Read more

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"This one is especially bad": Steam game about mistreating ragdolls suffers second bout of mod-based malware this year

Rock Paper Shotgun

People Playground, a Steam sandbox game about torturing or otherwise messing with innocent ragdolls that work like crash test dummies, has had its Steam Workshop disabled over a "malicious mod" peddling malware. That's according to the game's developer Mestiez, who's urging anyone who played the game with mods on September 21st to run virus scans and has told everyone not to fire People Playground up until they've announced it's safe to do so. Read more

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Microsoft want to record your face and feed it to a generative AI, telling it to go off and design a game from your frown

Rock Paper Shotgun

A new patent from Microsoft shows how they want to record your facial expressions, show them to an AI, and have it redesign the game you're playing. It's not only your face they want, but also any words you might be muttering, growls you might be making, or, dare I say, even purrs. The broader technology described in the patent is a process for game designers to prompt an AI to build out the narrative elements of a game, including objectives, sidequests, NPCs, dialogue, and items. Rather than stop at that first pass, the process would continue when players are in the game, analysing how they're playing to then generate new content based on their actions and reactions. A quick peek behind the curtain: I, too, am using this technology and the rest of this article has been rewritten to match exactly the facial expression you are making right… now. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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 . Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Tue, Sep 2214

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Furries, magical girls and slick hack 'n' slash combat blend promisingly together in the late 2000s inspired Break The Night

Rock Paper Shotgun

Despite not being one myself, I do seem to write about furry-adjacent games for this ole webbed site , don't I? And I've got another one for you today! It's called Break The Night, a hack 'n' slash with slick movement, roguelike elements, and magical girls inspired by aesthetics from the late 2000s, and while it's still quite early days yet, I've been quite charmed by it. Read more

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Packed Lair, out today, is a Tetris-adjacent base builder about cramming as much as you can into a tiny evil lair to aid your army in conquering the world

Rock Paper Shotgun

Real estate these days! No matter where you look, there's never enough space any more. I imagine this was the impetus for designing Packed Lair, a dungeony fusion of base building, auto battling, roguelikes and Tetris where you play as an evil lord who is trying to cram an entire empire into an incredibly cramped lair that's out today. Read more

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Love 'em or hate 'em, if it weren't for the Sonic the Hedgehog films, the blue blur might have been canned entirely, so says series boss Takashi Iizuka

Rock Paper Shotgun

I like Sonic. He charms me! But that doesn't mean I'm a fool. I know there are very few of his games that could actually be called "good," whatever that word might mean, I just don't care. Except making not good games, and having a reputation for doing so, will obviously result in waning returns financially. So it isn't a surprise to hear from Sonic boss Takashi Iizuka that, once upon a time, the entire series was at risk of cancellation. Which is where those of you that like the games but hate the movies need to say some thank yous. Read more

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Prebuilt Steam Machine faceplate screens are here, delivering decent, surprisingly cheaper alternatives to Valve-approved DIY builds

Rock Paper Shotgun

If you own a Steam Machine , and still cling to the misconception that my budget faceplate ideas aren’t good enough for you, you basically have three options for front panel customisation. The first is to grab something off Etsy or suchlike. The second is take advantage of Valve’s open-source Inkterface project to build yourself an E-Ink display, onto which you can electronically daub performance monitoring info. The third is to end up with more or less the same panel as option two, but have someone else make it for you. That’s what arch accessory makers JSAUX are proposing with their Steam Machine E-Ink and Pixel Matrix faceplates , which go on sale today after a few weeks of preening around the case mod scene. I’ve been using both on my Machine at home, and they’re quite good fun. The E-Ink faceplate, for which I sense the greater internet buzz, is a crisp, tidy little black-and-white panel, while the PixelMatrix trades detail density for colour and retro charm. Both have a few different display modes, switchable in SteamOS’s quick settings menu (via some clever integration with the Decky Loader plugin tool), and while I had to set this up manually, JSAUX say the requisite software will be downloadable via Steam itself from early October. Truly, it’s all the results of a DIY mod and more, conveniently pre-prepared for people who don’t own soldering irons. Read more

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Following a strong start, Rebel Wolves line up The Blood of Dawnwalker's first big patch for next month, adding in a new, easier difficulty mode and more

Rock Paper Shotgun

After a rip-roaring start for The Blood of Dawnwalker (one that has seen a bit of pushback against its timer mechanic , and an apparent confirmation of a sequel being in the works ), developer Rebel Wolves are gearing up for the game's first big update, one that'll introduce a new difficult mode and a suite of improvement, most likely arriving early October. Read more

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"I'm still blown away by the amount of talent": Hellblade devs Ninja Theory face closure after Microsoft fail to reach a deal with buyers

Rock Paper Shotgun

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that they were trying to sell UK-based Hellblade creators Ninja Theory as part of their steady efforts to siphon larger, shinier doubloons from the Xbox gaming business by laying off thousands of people . Today, they are proposing to close Ninja Theory, having ultimately failed to reach an agreement with buyers, though they're still holding out hope of a happier outcome. The news comes as part of the latest round of Microsoft cuts , which have seen Xbox lay off 268 people and merge several of their best-known studios. Read more

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"Good luck today, Halo friends": After years of rivalry, Call of Duty's creators have taken charge of Xbox's defining FPS series amid yet more layoffs

Rock Paper Shotgun

For decades, Halo developers have resisted the influence of the vastly better-selling Call of Duty shooters. Now, the makers of Call of Duty own Halo. As part of Microsoft's on-going axing-down of their Xbox gaming business , the company have placed Bungie's old FPS in the hands of Activision, while making layoffs at erstwhile series custodian Halo Studios and demoting the latter to a support studio for existing Halo games. Read more

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Today's changes might get Xbox a new Halo sooner, but history shows production line development makes for boring games

Rock Paper Shotgun

When I was younger, I loved Chewits. Each parcel of chewy sugar threatened to tear out a tooth, but their punch of strawberry, blackcurrent, and orange flavour was hard to resist. Left to my own devices, I would take packs of Chewits, unwrap all the sweets, and press them together in the palm of my hand until they formed a single Chewit boulder. The different colours and flavours became indistinguishable but the sheer size and density of the thing was attractive to my inner glutton. The first time I did this, I put the whole thing into my mouth and when I tried to bite down on the sweet mass my jaw became almost glued together by the sugary morass. Panicking, I tried to swallow it down and almost choked, as the formless Chewitts filled my oesophagus. Before I turned completely blue, I was able to cough it back up. I want to say I only did this once, but it took a good three or four times before I realised squashing things together, while it seems could only multiply each Chewits' amazingness, can actually make a formless mass that will choke you. So, onto Xbox's plans to consolidate their studios . Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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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"

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Mon, Sep 219

"It wasn't a planned thing": Breaking Benjamin singer on his mid-gig Fallout 4 mod promo being down to a broken drum and his love of VR

Rock Paper Shotgun

Remember when, a couple of weeks ago, the singer of American band Breaking Benjamin was filmed promoting a Fallout 4 first person he'd made via a mid-gig speech about modding community drama? Well, according to Benjamin Burnley, that wasn't some planned tirade, but rather an instance of ad-libbing to fill the dead air caused by a snare drum giving up the ghost. As for why it exists, the answer's largely just that the bloke loves him some VR wandering around Tamriel and The Commonwealth. Read more

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Microsoft file patent for a machine learning system that would "train" itself on your playtime to work out when you'll be least annoyed by in-game ads

Rock Paper Shotgun

Uncle Microsoft's efforts to keep inventing the Torment Nexus proceed apace with a patent application for an in-game advertising system that might use machine learning to read your activities, and work out when you'll be least apoplectic about being suddenly served a giant MacDonalds pop-up. Read more

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Virtue and a Sledgehammer will begin battering down the walls and android ghosts of a hometown filled with emotional memories this October

Rock Paper Shotgun

I dug The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood . It's a game about a fortune-telling witch on an asteroid who designs tarot cards and eventually gets sucked into politics. It also has its own special dildo . The devs behind it, Deconstructeam, are set to release their next game on October 27th. It's called Virtue and a Sledgehammer, and it's about revisiting your hometown to do a bit of trauma-laced DIY - if levelling the place counts as DIY. Read more

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Fly between radio outposts inside a murky megastructure in The Hollowing, a follow-up to the brilliant spelunking sim Lorn's Lure

Rock Paper Shotgun

I loved 2024's Lorn's Lure , the megastructure exploration game with the handsome climbing axes, but it took me a while to get the better of the whole "repeatedly falling and dying" element. I imagine a few megastructure lovers were deterred by this. Fine, says developer Rubeki, here's The Hollowing - another megastructure game set in the same narrative universe, but this time, with an airplane. Read more

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"I thought people would leave": Hideo Kojima offers his account of Physint's switch from PlayStation to Xbox, as his studio insist they're in a "healthy, profitable state"

Rock Paper Shotgun

Hideo Koijima and his studio Kojima Productions have offered a more in-depth version of their side of the story after action espionage game Physint switched publishers from PlayStation to Xbox earlier this month. Kojima claimed PlayStation had tried to cancel the game, with a subsequent report from Bloomberg alleging that an exceeded budget, missed deadlines, and Death Stranding series sales not being as strong as Sony hoped were among the factors which led the console makers to get cold feet. Now, Kojima Productions have urged people to take those claims "with a dose of scepticism", as Kojima has gone through his version of the events around the jump between publishers. Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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 . Read more

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This week in PC games: Control: Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall, and the history of Western philosophy as a pinball table

Rock Paper Shotgun

Hello all! Welcome to another week of feeding the Maw, the gluttonous cosmic sinkhole we must keep topped up with videogame news, lest it expand and masticate the entire universe. We're up against it this week, because no less than two RPS writers are taking holiday, leaving the Maw's thousand-ton dumbwaiters and condiment howitzers dangerously understaffed. Senior staff writer Mark is off on Friday - I can already hear the lamentation of various spouses in his on-going game of Crusader Kings 3 . Even worse, Edwin, our breathtakingly insightful and ruggedly handsome news editor, is away from Wednesday (note to self: set this article's author field to anonymous, before publishing). Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Sun, Sep 201

The Sunday Papers

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Sat, Sep 191

What are we all playing this weekend?

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Fri, Sep 188

In the absence of a new Deus Ex, indie imsim Tokyo Walled City may scratch that stealth 'n' stolen passwords itch

Rock Paper Shotgun

From the buzzing tube lights of TGS 2026 emerges Tokyo Walled City, a (deep breath) "stealth action retro-cyberpunk immersive sim with survival horror and RPG elements" in development at indie outfit Grim Ronin. Hey, I like most of those things, and I like rainy, neon Japanese streets , so let’s have a crack at covering an independent imsim without mentioning Gloomwood . Ah, dammit. Read more

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Tractor-battling teenage road trip RPG Keep Driving is getting official mod support via Steam Workshop later this month

Rock Paper Shotgun

Brendy (RPS in peace) liked Keep Driving . Nic (RPS in peace) liked Keep Driving. I (RPS still alive) liked Keep Driving. Julian (RPS currently boss) liked Keep Driving. You, reader, should play road trip RPG Keep Driving if you haven't already. A good excuse to do so is the fact that it's getting official mod support via the Steam Workshop on September 28th. Read more

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Single player games might require age verification if they use Steam under EU Kids Act's current draft, according to MEP's senior policy adviser

Rock Paper Shotgun

The European Commission proposed new rules around how under-15s access the likes of social media, AI chatbots, and online video games earlier this week . The draft legislation is called the EU Kids Act and calls for the setting up of a tiered system governing the types of accounts children under 15 can create to access such services, enforced by mandatory age verification for all users. The documents laying out the proposal have been officially released, and based on the current wording the Commission have used to define what they class as an online game, it seems single player games that rely on online platforms like Steam for updates, distribution, or even a one-time authentication could be caught in the crossfire. That is, unless the definition is tightened up before the law is set in stone, if it indeed it makes it that far. Read more

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Roman Sands RE:Build review: A unique and obliterating blend of resort sim, engineering horror and alchemic ritual

Rock Paper Shotgun

I completed Roman Sands RE:Build late last night, and haven't had nearly enough time to digest it, but I'm keen to help get the word out and energise whatever algorithmic chicanery might contribute to this gorgeous, ugly thing making money. So! Roman Sands RE:Build is two exquisitely grim games locked in a collapsing binary orbit. You should play it, preferably before reading the rest of this review, which is only going to spoil and dilute its squalid magic. Read more

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Denuvo are suing a prolific cracker for bypassing their DRM on 26 videogames, despite not knowing their real identity

Rock Paper Shotgun

Digital rights management software provider Denuvo are taking a prolific anonymous game cracker to court in the USA, accusing them of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by circumventing the anti-tamper technology on 26 games, including Black Myth: Wukong , Resident Evil Requiem and Doom: The Dark Ages . Read more

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Control Resonant review: A superbly strange action-RPG that'll make you feel tiny and godly at once

Rock Paper Shotgun

Control Resonant , much like the inside-out, interdimensional cryptids it has you bashing with a shapeshifting stick, probably shouldn’t exist. At least not in the risk-averse, pennypinching reality that sometimes seems to have enveloped the art of gamesmaking, and that may have installed some scepticism into my own head . The sequel to a liked yet slow-selling shooter, which replaces both the original’s player character and its instantly recognisable, bureauca-brutalist setting, while violently pirouetting into open-world RPG melee brawling. Five words that Remedy, in all their thirty years of existence, have never previously let pass their lips. Read more

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Baldur's Gate 3 Act Two Expansion mod, out now in beta, adds a whole new region to explore after dealing with the Shadow Curse

Rock Paper Shotgun

An ambitious Baldur's Gate 3 custom campaign mod which adds a whole new region to explore between the RPG's second and third acts is finally out in beta. This extra adventure midway through BG3's main quest is the result of nearly two years of work from modder SquallyDaBeanz, who's put together a trip to The Chionthar Wilds full of new missions and dungeons. Read more

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"Publishers are afraid of certain parts of the world": Saber Interactive's message to North American studios is to get their head out of their own geography

Rock Paper Shotgun

Layoffs have been a constant drumbeat in gaming industry news since 2022. Even if the cadence of layoffs seems to have slowed in 2026, the severity of those cuts has not lessened. In July, Microsoft made 1600 staff redundant as part of its great reset , and promised investors they would let 1600 more staff go in the next 12 months. Cuts like those and the ongoing economic pressures plaguing the industry – rising debt rates, a cost of living crisis, and a memory shortage that is making every aspect of making and playing video games pricier – should have the head of any large studio examining their plans for the future. Especially when games are taking longer to make, costing more to make, and up against a much greater volume of competition than even two years ago. With all that in mind, when I wasn't talking to Saber Interactive's chief creative officer Tim Willits about generative AI , I wanted to know what he would do if he ran one of those 200-people big-budget game studios. Because say what you like about Saber (and there's a lot of things people like to say about Saber), but the developer is doing well at a time when a lot of other studios and publishers are struggling. Read more

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Thu, Sep 178

Escape a roundabout as a stoned tuk-tuk driver in Zero Parades' free Director’s Cut update, which will add about 40,000 new words to the RPG next month

Rock Paper Shotgun

As many reservations as I had going into ZA/UM's Zero Parades: For Dead Spies earlier this year, what with all of the drama and upset that's surrounded the studio since Disco Elysium 's release, it pleasantly surprised me . I don't think I rate it more highly than its brilliant predecessor, but it offered a throughly fun time that felt like it was riding the coattails of Disco, but not in a way that left it any way unable to create its own magic. Now, it's getting a free Director's Cut update to coincide with its console release, with a bunch of new additions and tweaks coming to the PC version. Read more

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Twitch CEO expects GTA 6 online multiplayer will launch next year, which if accurate would leave only the PC port's arrival point up in the air

Rock Paper Shotgun

Despite Rockstar Games' silence on the matter, the cat rather seems to be out of the bag about GTA 6 getting its own online component that'll doubtless serve as GTA Online has for GTA 5 . Court docs the studio themselves filed as part of the ongoing final hearing in a legal battle over the firings of 34 developers last year are partly to thank, but now so is the boss of streaming platform Twitch just blurting out when he expects GTA 6 to get a big multiplayer bump. Read more

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Three different 4X strategy games, three different solutions to "that inherent problem" of disappearing exploration

Rock Paper Shotgun

There is an issue in 4X games. In fact, it's so persistent, that Amplitude Studios' co-founder and CEO Romain de Waubert de Genlis describes it as an "inherent problem", one his team have been attempting to solve since the first Endless Legend released back in 2014. "One of the X's, 'explore', disappears after a while," de Waubert de Genlis explains. You've discovered the map for one thing, so there is no more world to uncover. But 'explore' can also refer to something more abstract, your strategy becomes fixed. Because you can see the lands, and you can see the resources, and you can see the enemies you face, you must decide on a course of action and there will rarely be much reason to change it. But spotting the problematic 'X' is far simpler than fixing it. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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? Read more

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"We will not force it": The Blood of Dawnwalker's sequel might drop the timer mechanics, says director, but I hope they stick around

Rock Paper Shotgun

If you've given The Blood of Dawnwalker a go, odds are you've got thoughts about the 30-day and 3-night timer it applies to Coen's quest to save his family from fate most vampy. Devs Rebel Wolves are very much aware of how divisive the feature's proven, and now the game's director's made clear that it's not guaranteed to return in future entries unless it can be made to mesh with the story being told. Read more

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Guild Wars 3 dev wants you to be able to take a break for months at a time and know you're "not going to be left behind"

Rock Paper Shotgun

Colin Johanson doesn't think the MMO is dying. He would say that: he's the studio head of Arenanet, the team behind the Guild Wars series. He's also talking to me directly after showing off combat and movement in the team's next MMO, Guild Wars 3. That said, what is more unexpected is that he says the genre is "as big as it's ever been." You just need to expand your definition of an MMO. Read more

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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"

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Wed, Sep 169

"15 years ago, people understood it was an unfinished game": As Endless Legend 2 hits 1.0, Amplitude reflect on how early access has changed

Rock Paper Shotgun

Amplitude have always used early access for their games, even before Steam Early Access was a thing. Ahead of Endless Space 's release in July 2012, players who preordered the game got immediate access to an alpha build that was steadily patched and updated on the lead up to launch. To this day, the studio still uses its Games2Gether program, where they discuss design issues with players and poll them for thoughts on how to proceed. Right now, there are a small group of players giving feedback on the recently announced Humankind 2. However, as Amplitude prepare to launch Endless Legend 2 after a year in early access , co-founder and CEO Romain de Waubert de Genlis readily admits "The whole thing has changed over time." Read more

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Low poly horror Tumblebee combines the joy of tumbling bees with the not-joy of being chased by huge spiders

Rock Paper Shotgun

For the last few years I've been labouring to transform my terror of spiders into guarded appreciation, even wonder. I've been drawing pictures of spiders, and writing stories about them. When I spy a spyder (spider) in the wild, I make a strenuous display of hunkering down to utter words like "ooh, what a beautiful False Widow, such poetry of form". Then the spider moves a fraction, and I hoot and holler on out of there, pawing imaginary silk strands from my face. Videogames like Tumblebee are not helping with this endeavour. Read more

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MindsEye studio Build A Rocket Boy appear to be making fresh redundancies, as one staffer says he's "helping wrap things up here in the HR department"

Rock Paper Shotgun

Update: The IWGB Games Worker Union have issued the following statement to RPS from vice-chair Ben Newbon: We cannot add any further insight into the heartbreaking job losses at BARB, a company that we think has been slowly spiralling for a long time. We came together to fight tooth and nail to prevent the hardworking people working there from such a fate after pouring their heart and soul into Minds Eye. We are proud of what we built there but still hearing of redundancies is always an injustice. We offer nothing but solidarity and support to everyone impacted by any job losses and remain committed to getting justice for BARB management’s treatment of workers and organising to root these practices out of the video games industry. Only by joining and becoming active in a trade union can we achieve these goals. Original story follows: Build a Rocket Boy (BARB), makers of panned futuristic action game/massive minigame platform MindsEye , appear to be making more staff redundant or able to seek other work. As part of a LinkedIn post indicating he's seeking opportunities elsewhere, a principal talent acquisition partner at the studio has written that he "will be seeing BARB through till the very end, helping wrap things up here in the HR department", which doesn't exactly paint a rosy picture of the company's future. Read more

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"A dried husk of a product": former Doom producer berates Microsoft for making Halo a "mid-tier" game and mourns the "financialisation" of AAA

Rock Paper Shotgun

Former Doom: The Dark Ages producer Andrew Willis has shared tuppence on the state of the blockbuster videogame trade, arguing that the biggest companies and most popular series are going through a familiar "cycle" whereby the moneyfolk finally displace the creatives, and start messing games up in the name of short-term returns. He reckons that the likes of Halo are well on their way to becoming "a dried husk of a product that everyone just now associates with like, slop". Read more

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"We're trying to make it easier": Valve confirm the Steam Frame is just the start of plans to get Steam games working on compatibility-challenged ARM PCs

Rock Paper Shotgun

The Steam Frame , unfortunately RAM shortage-ravaged as it is, is unique among virtual reality headsets for its ability to run Steam games – VR or 'flat' alike – entirely on its own, internal compute hardware. It is, in effect, a SteamOS PC for your face. Yet as I waxed about in our review , this feature’s impact could extend far beyond the Frame itself, as it’s based on new compatibility tech that Valve now hope to bring to a broader range of PCs and laptops. Potentially, according to staff speaking with RPS, making bonafide gaming systems out of previously unfriendly computers. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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". Read more

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Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember has a demo out, as Koei Tecmo carve an early 2027 release date into some hulking demons from Chinese mythology

Rock Paper Shotgun

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty sequel Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember will release in March next year, devs Koei Tecmo have revealed as they've whipped out an alpha demo that you can give a go right away. Expect plenty of samurai sword slashing and rolling around the mythological or historical Chinese big man, plus some open battlefields to roam. Read more

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Tue, Sep 158

Skyblivion's release is "getting closer" as the massive Skyrim mod's makers start recruiting for a big final marketing push

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Skyblivion , that massive Oblivion remake mod which was originally set to release last year , finally seems to be on the verge of arrival. While they've still yet to put a full release date on it, the mod's creators have announced that they're looking for voluteers to join their comms team and contribute to a final push to get the word out about their creation. Read more

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Tim Willits doesn't think Rideshare's generative AI is damaging Saber's reputation

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A few weeks ago, when I spoke with Tim Willits, chief creative officer at Saber Interactive, makers of games like Space Marine 2, SnowRunner , and World War Z, the company was dealing with the shitstorm that ensued from their announcement of Rideshare Stimulator. The game's basically an Uber simulator, with you driving a car around town picking up fares, but Saber drew all kinds of bad attention when a former writer on the game revealed the game featured generative AI ( something left undisclosed on the game's Steam page until recently ) and CEO Matt Karch responded by attacking the writer in statements to the press. Something he has since apologised for. So, naturally, we talked about generative AI and the reputational damage – or lack of – when getting caught out using it. Read more

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Marathon's next major update runs a few months further away, permanent PvE in hand, as Bungie ditch their "strict seasonal schedule"

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Bungie have announced that the Marathon update originally slated to arrive on September 22nd will not be doing so. Instead, it'll rock up in December as part of a major update dubbed Symbiosis, which'll introduce a new permanent PvE mode. Bungie are pegging it as "the first major step in Marathon ’s next chapter" and have decided to ditch their established seasonal cadence for additions as part of this raft of changed plans. Read more

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Paradox's grand strategy game Afterworld hasn't got a fixed history, it changes with every playthrough

Rock Paper Shotgun

Each time you start a new campaign in Afterworld, Paradox's upcoming post-apocalyptic grand strategy game , a tiny virtual historian cracks their knuckles and gets to work writing a new 200-year history for what happened to North America in the dying days of the great war. They will decide where the great powers fired their nuclear-tipped missiles, where they released their clouds of flesh-eating nanites, where they dropped their lung-bubbling chemical weapons, and they will decide who survived and who died. These procedural changes should mean that each time you start a new game of Afterworld, the map will be dramatically different from the last. That flexibility to rewrite the surface of Afterworld is vital, game director Dan Lind tells me, "Otherwise it undermines a lot of the exploration". Read more

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European Commission's proposed EU Kids Act could see online games forced to enact stricter age verification amid new rules around accounts for under 15s

Rock Paper Shotgun

The European Commission are reportedly set to propose new rules around how under 15s access the likes of social media, AI chatbots, and online video games. Dubbed the EU Kids Act, the proposed legislation in its current form demands the setting up of a tiered system governing the types of accounts children under 15 can create to access such services. As with the UK's Online Safety Act , that'd result in the rolling out of age verification hoops everyone has to jump through to access these allegedly risky platforms. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Mon, Sep 1411

The King Is Watching devs are making The Crab is Walking, this journalist is writing

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The King Is Watching developers Hypnohead have announced The Crab Is Walking, a roguelite city-builder in which you alternate between arranging tetromino-shaped city districts on the back of a colossal crustacean, and sending out armies of Mad Maxalots to slaughter wasteland insects. Unlike in The King Is Watching, you do not have to actively train your gaze on your crab metropolis to stop it slacking off. Read more

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"We track every server you enter": the Wardogs devs are "coming down hard" on XP farms and cash exploits, even as they encourage people to grind

Rock Paper Shotgun

The creators of military shooter Wardogs have announced that they will crack down heavily on players who use exploits and bugs to speedily farm in-game currency and XP, or who spend “more than a few minutes” in servers created for this purpose. Given that Wardogs advertises itself as a shooter about getting rich – a game in which "cash is king", with individualised payouts for a bunch of different in-game actions - I do feel like Bulkhead are sending mixed messages, even by the standards of incoherent wargames. Trying to define 'fairly earned' in a game that encourages you to be a frenzied, gun-toting plutomaniac is surely plunging headfirst into farce. Mind you, I respect the desire to Maintain The Fun for players who aren't quite as dollar-driven, and avoid having a community browser slammed with servers called "[EU/DOGF$RM]" or similar. Read more

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Valve decided that cutting the Steam Frame’s specs to avoid price rises wasn't "the right product choice" for the VR headset

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Surprising no-one, Valve’s Steam Frame VR headset is launching with higher-than-expected prices , following the Steam Machine in having its budget-friendly intentions foiled by the memory shortage misery of RAMnarök. The lack of affordable PC parts - which as a fully standalone-capable VR kit, the Steam Frame is as vulnerable to as any laptop or desktop - continues to have wide-ranging, usually shitty impacts on hardware manufacturing and even game development . Besides simply raising prices, some kit makers are reverting to lower-RAM models to keep costs down, or going DRAMless altogether. Valve, however, have told RPS that there was never a question of cutting the Frame’s specs, even as the worldwide component crisis took hold. Read more

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Steam Frame review: Another best-in-class VR headset by Valve, though virtual realities clash with economic ones

Rock Paper Shotgun

It’s a strange time to be selling a new VR headset, and maybe an even stranger time to be buying one. The supply of original virtual reality games has slowed to a dribble, and just as with Valve’s last hardware launch, the Steam Frame arrives covered in bumps and scrapes from a fight with the worst components shortage in memory. A fight which, judging by how it’ll cost ya £889 / $1,059 at minimum, it lost. However, something else the Frame has in common with the revamped Steam Machine is that as a piece of hardware per se , it’s really quite likeable. Charismatic, even. It’s a happy marriage of core VR capability and genuinely new engineering ideas: some simple practicality boons, some with the potential to change PC games as we know them. And not just the ones you’d play with sweaty goggles on your face. Read more

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Valve’s Steam Frame VR headset opens for orders, with the cheapest model priced at a lenswatering £889 / $1,059

Rock Paper Shotgun

Valve have just launched the Steam Frame wireless VR headset, finally completing the triumvirate of new hardware – along with the new Steam Machine and Steam Controller – that they unveiled all the way back in November 2025. The review embargo has also lifted, meaning I can tell you that it’s a smart and flexible piece of virtual reality kit . Definitely the most versatile of its kind, in terms of how it lets you play games. Less triumphantly, the Frame has clearly sustained the impact of the same memory shortages and component cost explosions that jacked up the Machine’s pricing and limited its stock. Thus, despite initial plans to make the Frame cheaper than the ultra-premium Valve Index , the Steam Frame starts at £889 / $1,059 / €1,049 for the smaller 256GB model. That rises to £1,089 / $1,299 / €1,279 for the top 1TB version, with several accessory options potentially bumping out the outlay even further. Read more

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Blizzard say Battle.net isn't looking to fight Steam and Epic for supermassive storefront supremacy, despite recently nabbing The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077

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No siree. We are not trying to fight those big bosses. It's arguably a bit of a weird thing for a publisher with Diablo and World of Warcraft in their arsenal to say, but that's the stance Blizzard are sticking to with their storefront Battle.net, even though it now boasts two big CD Projekt Red RPGs. Instead of an unknowably girthy hoard of games, the publishers say Battle.net 's still designed to feel like a handpicked basket of things to play. Read more

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This week in PC games: become a magic girl in Kernel Hearts, a dog commando in Fright Train, or a capital class warship in Sublight

Rock Paper Shotgun

Happy new week all! Over the weekend I banished all thought of rocks, paper or shotguns and volunteered to pick apples at a local orchard. Many wonderful varieties were carefully netted, then jumbled together in a huge mesh bag: speckled golden sours, fit to devour immediately with an appreciative grimace; jolly green cookers, wearing their scabs like medals of honour; sharp little reds that slice up into the clearest white wedges. Such intoxicating fruit! As we blundered around with poles and hard hats, we trampled on dozens of fallen, rotting apples, spicing the air with a sickly pungence. It was then that I saw it: the juiciest apple of all, dangling almost within grabbing distance in a peculiar depth of shade, beneath a tree of somehow abyssal provenance - its leaves salt-rimed and its roots akin to sunken steel anchors. I reached and the apple danced back a metre, becoming luminous. By its light, I perceived the slow parting of enormous crystal fangs. Damn it, Maw! I am trying to pick apples in peace. It's just as well I've brought a second mesh bag of new PC games to feed you. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

Update: Wadjet Eye's Dave Gilbert has confirmed on Bluesky that Nighthawks' "Adults Only" Steam label has been removed, meaning it's no longer locked in horny jail. "Everything is set for launch on the 22nd," he added. "Phew. What a roller coaster. Thank you everyone for your amazing support while we got this sorted." Original story follows: 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. Read more

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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

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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. Read more

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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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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. Read more

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Sun, Sep 131

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

Rock Paper Shotgun

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." Read more

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