Open-world adventure now expected in October Square Enix this week announced a four-and-a-bit-month delay forForspoken, the open-world action-adventure game about a New Yorker pulled into a fantasy world. Previously due on the 24th of May, it’s now slated for the 11th of October. Sounds like Squeenix hope to make it the start of a new series, so they’re taking time to help ensure it’s proper good. Fair enough. Formerly know asProject Athia, Forspoken is an open-world game starring Frey Holland, a New Yorker who’s harmlessly walkin' heah when she’s pulled into a fantasy world full of dragons and wizards who need a kicking....

Celeste, A Short Hike, and so many more supporting charities A phenomenal new bundle of indie games is raising money for two charities supporting relief efforts in Ukraine. The Bundle For Ukraine on Itch.io includes almost 600 games, and you can have the lot if you pay at least $10. Games include Celeste,A Short Hike,Superhot,Hidden Folks, and oh so many more worth mentioning. Barely 11 hours after launching, the bundle has already raised over $593,000 towards its $1 million goal....

The fastest way to an empire’s heart is through its stomach Built by two longtime RTS fans,The Fertile Crescentrekindles the age-old torch of elaborate strategy titles. Its combat and economy chains build on each other, a feat uncommon in the real-time strategy space. Despite taking cues from beloved franchises like WarCraft andAge of Empires, TFC carves out a niche with an unlikely ally: pomegranates. The Fertile Crescent trades the ol’ berry bush for pomegranate trees, a native of Western Asia....

Joining companies including EA and Microsoft As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, more games companies have decided to suspend some business with Russia. In the past few days, Activision Blizzard, Epic, and CD Projekt (including GOG) all announced plans to stop selling games or stop selling things in games to Russia, joining a list which also includes EA and Microsoft. Update:Also joining them,Ubisoft suspending sales in Russiaand Take-Twosuspending sales in Russia and Belarus....

“Visions of snake” PlayingElden Ringbefore its official launch was an honest experience. I’d flick the game online and see a few messages scrawled on the ground in glowing chalk. It was a Lands Between where “try jumping” wasn’t some evil trickery, and “illusory wall ahead” meant discovering a hidden passage. Since the game’s release, the player messages have taken on a different complexion. Before, I trusted in our small community trying its best to get by....

On the bright side, apparently RimWorld is coming to consoles? Australia’s Classification Board last week slapped an RC rating on RimWorld, an act which seemingly also leaked news that console versions are coming (the devs have since talked about this as “a potential console version”). While the listing is no longer public, Internet archives show it explained: The computer game is classified RC in accordance with the National Classification Code, Computer Games Table, 1....

Urban Venture will see you driving the streets of Barcelona When I spoke to studio lead Marcin Jaśkiewicz about the game ahead of today’s reveal, he described it to me as a bit like a “peaceful GTA”, although whether the traffic cops will still come after you for running red lights remains to be seen. Assuming you’re the law-abiding type, though (this is a simulation game, after all), Simteract’s big focus has been making sure players “feel like you’re actually there,” says Jaśkiewicz....

A sync problem led to some losing progress In the past week, quite a fewElden Ringplayers have suffered problems with save files on Steam. They weren’t being synced properly online with the Steam Cloud, which led to Steam asking whether they wanted to use the cloud save or local save. This question spooked some, leading them to choose poorly and end up with an old save, missing maybe hours of progress....

After its hugely popular closed beta test I stumbled across Super People for the first time late last year, when it had 50,000 concurrent players on Steam yet no way to buy it. There’s still no way to buy it, but the battle royale’s closed beta tests have drawn to a close and its developers have laid out plans for an early access release due later this year. Battle royaleshave obviously been falling from the sky by the dozen over the past few years, like players from a plane, and on the face of it Super People doesn’t offer anything radically different....

Then play with the holes with friends I feel like the recent past has contained several radical takes on the sport of golf, from the barren infinity ofDesert Golfing, the mad libs ofWhat The Golf?and the post-apocalyptic storytelling ofGolf Club Wasteland By comparison,MiniGolf Makeris traditional - and yet its simplicity is extremely appealing. It’s a mini golf game with a robust editor for making your own courses. Here’s a video, which really focuses on the course creator:...

Along with 4 other Kairosoft games Kairosoft are bringing five of their games to Steam later this month, including the beloved, life-consumingGame Dev Story. The others on the way areHot Springs Story,Station Manager,Dungeon VillageandDream House Days DX- all of which contain the same moreish business management loop. I first played Game Dev Story on PC over a decade ago, when its hugely popular iOS release prompted me to seek out its original Japanese PC release....

Fewer complications to your crimes Hitman 3’s second year saw the addition of Elusive Targets Arcade, which brings permanent new assassination contracts to the murder sandbox as opposed to the previous time-limited targets. Three new Arcade contracts were added this week, alongside tweaks which make existing and future Arcade contracts a lot simpler. IOI laid out all the changes and their content roadmap for therest of March in a new blog post....

Hitting the big time Even the most minor character can accrue a rabid fandom. If there’s no outpouring of questionable illustration following the debut of your single-sentence plot-helper, then you’ve either failed at fiction or you are deeply blessed. Some breakaway characters begin as a joke, or an afterthought, some as a narrative necessity, or a kind of walking, talking environment art. Others are born as side characters to lighten the story because the main dudes frown too much and Derek from market research says frowns are “cringe”....