An ambitious mix of city-building, historical simulation and real-time battles from a solo dev We first sawManor Lordsa couple of years ago, when its mix ofCrusader Kings-like simulation,Ages of Empires-ycity-buildingand sweeping battles a laTotal Warmade it one to watch. We weren’t alone in that anticipation either, as the ambitious medievalstrategy game- created by a solo dev, no less - rocketed up the Steam charts to become one of its most wishlisted games....

What a thrill Metal Gear Solid 3arrived on PC for the first timeyesterday thanks to thestealth-actionseries’ Master Collection. Unfortunately, it seems to be a fairly underwhelming PC debut for Hideo Kojima’s frog-munching masterpiece, with Snake Eater’s Steam pagefull of negative reviewsabout the barebones port’s restriction to 720p resolution, reported startup crashes and lack of Steam Deck support. Perhaps those disappointments of a proper return for MGS3 might be allayed somewhat by the first proper gameplay trailer for its full remakeMetal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, which is looking very nice indeed....

Back in 2007, some Infinity Ward staff worried RPG-style progression would be “unfair” It’s hard to imagine blockblusteryfirst-person shootingtoday withoutCall of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s online progression systems, which - inasmuch as you can assign this much clout to a single game or developer - transformed the genre back in 2007 by reinventingmultiplayeras a kind ofRPG. Shooters without COD-style gear levelling ladders do exist, not leastCounter-Strike 2, but most of the juggernauts depend on such fixtures, especially now that free-to-play service models have become the norm....

Need a hint for today’s Connections? Read our guide for help with Connections #136 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....

CCP Games' CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson doesn’t want to be forgotten Pétursson has discovered a company that uses cow stem cells to 3D print calfskin. For the studio’s 30th anniversary, he plans to commission a poetry chapter inspired by Iceland’s epic history book, the Prose Edda, write it on the artificial skin, and put it in a Reykjavik museum. It would sit alongside an ancient calfskin copy of the Icelandic sagas....

You have to see this stunning hub level When two of a game’s weapons are nailguns, you should probably expect players to be enthusiastic about construction. Following last year’s excellentBrutalist Jam map pack,Quakemappers have reunited to release another free load of levels inspired by Brutalism and concrete. The 30 maps offer good honest fragging in everything from concrete cities to murderous mystical puzzle boxes. Honestly, I’d recommend downloading the pack even if only to see the hub level and marvel at quite how good Quake can look when made for modern PCs....

Mayor Bones is back, baby This year I’ve already seen several pumpkins that utilise the back and front of the canvas, creating e.g. a scary maw that works from whatever angle you approach. And there are multiple Shreks this year, and many a Grogu. There’s at least a couple of Jack Skellingtons every time I’ve looked, as well. I experimented with the camera filters to take some moody shots of the spooky displays....

Vote now! Last time, you decided thatpresent decisions deciding past events is better than that puzzle where switches turn on some things while turning off others. I can’t say I am surprised by the result, and suspect it was heavily influenced by spite, but I am very grateful to the people who stood up and explained why they like that puzzle where etc. I do try to make a case for both things but won’t pretend I understand (or appreciate) every thing in games, so I appreciate your help....

Stuck on today’s Wordle word for October 25? Read our hint or find the answer below! This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s solution? Check out theWordle hint and answer for Thursday 12th December! Need a hint for today’s Wordle answer?Every day,Wordlepresents its legions of players with a deviously simple quandary: can you guess the right five-letter word within just six guesses? All you have to help you in finding the Wordle answer are the contextual clues you gain from each guess - but often, that’s not enough....

Matchmaking fixes and AI tweaks The updates to matchmaking include fixes for “host errors, disconnects, queue issues, crossplay, crashes and more,“according to the patch notes. The AI improvements for your two combat android sidekicks, Alpha and Beta, apparently cover their offensive, defensive, and support capabilities, which presumably doesn’t leave much that’s not been tweaked. Developers Cold Iron say these changes include “some long-requested quality of life updates”, and that more such updates are on the way....

But either way you should stop asking him about it American McGee has spent the past several years trying to makeAlice: Asylum, a third entry in his series of action-horror games inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. That fight produced a crowdfunded 414-page design bible but came to an end earlier this year when rights-holders EArejected the pitch, and McGee declared that he had “no other ideas or energy left to apply toward getting a new Alice game made....

Built different Cities: Skylines 2is, much like the wonkily roaded, pollution-choked helltown I’ve built within it, a work in progress. Developers Colossal Order upped the citybuilding sequel’s system requirements well in advance of launch, and more recently admitted to have"not achieved the benchmark we targeted"for PC performance. Instead, future improvements are promised, to patch Skylines 2 into better shape. I wish I could say that this is all just pessimism, born from an overabundance of caution and expectation management....

“You can’t throw away everything, you can’t keep everything, you can’t update everything.” The Elder Scrolls 6is going to be a mixture of new ideas andRPGsystems that go all the way back toThe Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, according to Bethesda’s former design director Bruce Nesmith, who was lead designer onThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrimand senior designer onStarfield. In particular, Nesmith reckons it will “absolutely” continue withSkyrim’s approach to levelling and progression, whereby you improved skills by performing the associated actions....