The line’s dead On the eighteenth day of our Advent Calendar you find yourself curiously, suddenly alone. A fog rolled through town and suddenly everyone has disappeared. Oh, wait, that looks like a bunch of school kids over there, maybe they’ll hel- OH GOD OH NO. Lot of dead people clogging up the lines inGhostwire: Tokyo! And by shining, I of course mean eerie and rain-soaked. In the aftermath of a paranormal invasion, Ghostwire: Tokyo’s Tokyo has been left as one big liminal space, devoid of anyone save for patrolling yokai and the unsettled spirits of their victims....

Sickly sweet Costume Quest 2is the current freebie on the Epic Games Store, offered up as part of their 15 days of free games. You’ve got until 4pm GMT/8am PT tomorrow to add it to your account, after which it’s yours to keep forever. You can grabCostume Quest 2here, where it would normally set you back £12. (Except for when they gave it away for freetwo years ago.) TheCostume Questseries has a simple central conceit: what if Halloween costumes actually transformed you into whatever the costume depicted?...

His farewell memo as CTO was leaked After the leak happened, Carmack posted thefull text of the memo to Facebook, with some additional context. “This is the end of my decade in VR. I have mixed feelings,” Carmack begins. After writing that the Quest 2 “is almost exactly what I wanted to see from the beginning,” he explains that his problem is with the company’s “efficiency.” “We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort....

I’m all about the Rainy Swamp I played hundreds of hours ofMinecraftin the years after its original release, but hadn’t returned again until recently. It turns out the standalone expansion I needed was a son. He’s six years in development and today I introduced him to a private Minecraft multiplayer server for the first time. Exploring, building, andthe vibesare all as wonderful as I remember. Perfect timing: Mojang have just released a series of Minecraft “Soothing Scenes”....

Shoot robots and talk to your Himbo husband The Knight Witch deserves more attention than it’s getting. It’s a Metroidvania shmup in which you fly about, blast enemies with guns, and cast spells from a deck of cards. For all the bang and zip of the combat, it’s also deeply cosy, with lush 2D art and sweet character relationships in an underground post-apocalyptic world that’s still somehow filled with plants, rustic cabins and cute market stalls....

Gotta go fast! For day 17 of the RPS Advent Calendar this year, you’re feeling the need - the need forspeed. There’s a beautiful load of levels to leap through out there, and if you can take out all the enemies in your way then so much the better. Hope we tricked at least one of you there, because it’sNeon Whitetime, baby! Alice0:Neon White is a speedrunning FPS set across vaporwave Heaven, where a gang of anime idiot criminals have been raised to defeat demons....

Hints and the answer to this Wordle word So, once more for the road, here’s the deal: if you’re in need of clues to help you figure out today’s Wordle answer, I’ve put together some handy hints for you just below. Or, if you want to view the solution in full, scroll down below the video to see it along with its definition. Looking for today’s solution? Check out theWordle hint and answer for Thursday 12th December!...

If you have World enough and time All the flap aboutWorld Of Warcraft: Dragonflighthas made it easier than ever to forget there’s a wholeNew Worldout there, but there is, and it’s temporarily free. You can jump into the frontier of Amazon Games vaguely piratical MMO without paying a penny this weekend, where you’re free to lark about until December 19th. Has the recent early game overhaul alleviated the opening grind? Perhaps!...

Didn’t the autumn one end like, five minutes ago Valve have announced that the Steam Winter Sale will begin next week on December 22nd. I can already see myself standing in front of my mirror, chanting “I do not need more games” before sitting back down at my desk and splurging on everything I missed from this year’sRPS advent calendar. Valve have given us a peek at what’s going to be on sale, so click through to see what you should avoid buying until it starts....

What is this, a town center for ants The Blockreminds me of those mini zen sand gardens, except I don’t have to worry about anyone thinking I’m a stressed pretentious business executive when they look at my desk. It bills itself as the world’s smallest city builder, on account of your creations stretching across singular tiles that range from a tiddly 3x3 surface area to a mighty 15x15. It’s by developer Paul Schnepf, who made minimalist skateboarding gameThe Rampand worked on the lovely yet much more goal-orientedIslanders....

A great-looking case that’s easy to build in too. The NZXT H510Eliteis a rather excellent mid-size case, offering beautiful visuals courtesy of its glass-heavy design and an easy build experience thanks to the company’s long-ass history of case-building. The H510 Elite also comes with a controller for its integrated RGB lighting, so you can easily plug in other NZXT gubbins for a pretty sweet setup. Anyway, why am I bringing this up?...

The 2TB Crucial P3 Plus is down to £128 at Amazon UK. The Crucial P3 Plus is ourbest cheap PCIe 4.0 SSD for gaming, so I’m happy to report that the giant 2TB model is down to a modest £128 at Amazon UK. This isn’t the lowest price it’s ever been - it was £119 once before - but it is still an excellent price for a high performance PCIe 4....

They’re also working on more single-player adventures for Aloy, too The universe that began withHorizon Zero Dawnis expanding, with devs Guerrilla Games confirming that they’re working on a new single-player games for Aloy, and a separate “Online Project” set in the same universe. Announced in atweettoday, it confirms previous rumours that Guerrilla were working on an online multiplayer Horizon game, and a recent batch of job listings for the project have given us a glimpse of what we might be able to expect once it’s ready....