“We’re in a really broken world” The makers ofCyberpunk 2077host a podcast every once in a while, in which the studio’s developers chat about what’s going on in the company. In the latest episode, they’re discussing their (relatively new) Boston studio and how it’s spearheading the as-yet-enigmatic sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. There’s a lot of middle-managey chit chat but one thing that stood out was one developer’s earnest remarks about what he considers some of the sci-fi RPG’s shortcomings....

Je suis perdu We didn’t get to Sandfall and Kepler Interactive’sClair Obscur: Expedition 33during our coverage of Microsoft’s summer showcase, a couple of weeks ago. If memory serves, when they ran that particular trailer I was busy sponging swampwater out my eyes afterwriting up South Of Midnight, while Nic had become so vociferously agitated overthe debut of Doom: Dark Agesthat he was no longer solid and tangible enough to operate a keyboard....

So random It’s said that every timeDeus Exis mentioned, someone reinstalls it. If that’s true and you read RPS, it’s possible you’ve reinstalled Deus Ex around six hundred times by now. That’s where the comprehensive Randomizer mod comes in, which remixes the immersive sim’s levels to make the experience fresh every time. It’s also just received a major update which, among several other additions, lets you pet the game’s dogs and cats....

Why, that’s easily enough time to get bodyslammed by a griffon Let me continue the theme from ourround-up of Steam sale reccs for under a tenner, while exchanging the concept of money for the concept of time: what can you do in celebrated open world"anecdote generator"Dragon’s Dogma 2in two hours or less? Two hours being the length of the free Dragon’s Dogma 2 trial that is now live on Steam. For context, this is approximately how much time Capcom gave me to preview their latest action-RPG, many headline cycles ago....

Here is the full Dryleaf Dane quest walkthrough for Shadow Of The Erdtree Looking for a walkthrough of the Dryleaf Dane questline in Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree?Dryleaf Dane is a monk of the Dryleaf Sect inElden Ring’s DLCShadow Of The Erdtree. While he might be a man of little words, Dryleaf Dane is a master of martial arts who lets his fists do the talking. If you want to unlock Hand-to-Hand Arts, a new weapon variety in Shadow of the Erdtree, you’ll need to challenge this taciturn combatant to a duel....

A relief to me I think I’ve written about it a bazillion times here on RPS, but I do thinkElden Ringis a massiveopen worldgame that’s a bittoolarge and in charge. I reached theexhaustion pointonce, and now the DLC’s come out, I’m scared I’ll reach it again despite the factI think it’s very good. It’s interesting then, that FromSoftware’s president Hidetaka Miyazaki sees Elden Ring as “the limit” for FromSoftware in terms of project scale (cheersThe Guardianfor the interview, and PCGamer forthe spot)....

This is my BROOMSTICK Mika and The Witch’s Mountainappears to be an unofficial video game adaptation ofKiki’s Delivery Service, which is a Studio Ghibli film about a witch who decides to go postal, but not in the Running with Scissors sense. Created by developers Chibig and Nukefist, it’s a “mini open world” game about carrying packages by broomstick while investigating the titular mountain, flying through hoops a la Pilotwings, and savouring the balmy inconsequentiality of an island that reminds me of Super Mario Sunshine....

RPS recommends: frugality. Also, orcs apparently Brendan:A whole ten English pounds. Boy, oh boy. After some perverse price tag sniffing I found you can buyDome Keeper, the"small, but perfectly formed tower defence game"for £7.50 and still have pennies left over to gamble against a sinister being with a pump-action shotgun inBuckshot Roulette. Ed:Fantastic, ten squid that I can add to the Steam credit I earned from selling hundreds ofCS:GOcrates individually over the course of two grueling hours....

Need a hint for Connections? Read our guide for help with Connections #383 This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s solution? Check out theConnections hint and answers for Thursday 12th December! Want a hint for Connections today?Piggybacking off the monumental success of daily puzzle gameWordle, the New York Times has another fantastically popular word game out now. It’s calledConnections, and if you haven’t played it before, now’s the time to start....

Valve themselves are silent, of course Team Fortress 2’s received its first major update in yonks last year, and then thenearly 17-year-old game promptly broke its concurrent player record. Still, talk to one of those players and you’ll find all is not well with Valve’s shooter, which is apparently regularly overrun by bots and cheaters. Some players are now reporting “a large ban wave” targeting users of aimbots, however. Valve themselves have not announced that they’ve taken any new action, so all we have to go on are reports from the community....

True romance The Sims 4is continuing its efforts to represent all the worst parts of modern living. The last expansionadded predatory landlords and mould-soaked apartments. The next expansion will add the ability to create dating app profiles for your sims. It’s called Lovestruck and it’ll launch on July 25th. Lovestruck adds the Cupid’s Corner app, on which players can create a profile for their sim, define what sort of partner they’re looking for, then choose what kind of date to go on....

Rise Of Ix adds dreadnoughts and new leaders Dune Imperium is a fabulous strategy game about becoming the biggest spice boy on a sandy planet I presume is called Dune. I love it despite never having read the Dune books or watched the Dune movies, because the digital version taught me everything I needed to know about Barry Harkonnen, Oscar Isaac, the tall guy from Guardians Of The Galaxy, and their insatiable pursuit of space nutmeg....

“Technology is evolving at such a pace that there are limitless possibilities for evolution” sure are some words in a certain order Assassin’s Creedfans “can be excited about some remakes” of the older games in theopen worldseries, permits generous soul Yves Guillemot,via one of those odd promotional thingsdisguised as a conversation. They’d like to “revisit some of the games we’ve created in the past and modernize them,” Ubisoft told Ubisoft about Ubisoft....