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And they all lived middling ever after Fabledomsomehow passed me by, but darn if it isn’t leaving early access in about a week and a half. May 13th (unlucky for some) will see this fairytale kingdom city builder launch into 1.0, after a comparatively short but successful early access run onSteam. It looks very sweet, and reminds me of a kind ofFoundationmeetsLakeburg Legacies- at least based on the trailer, which puts an emphasis on it laid back and idyllic citybuilding, and love....

Some non-bricky bits have been added to Battle Royale, Rocket Racing and Fortnite Festival, too In its continuing quest to become Everything to Everyone,Fortnitehas shapeshifted, The Thing-like, into a new Lego Star Wars game. TheLego Fortnite survival modehas been expanded with a new, permanent Star Wars world, with this weekend - which includes May the Fourth, don’tcha know - also kicking off a new battle pass and bringing additions to every other part of Fortnite: whether you’re playing it as abattle royale shooter(remember that?...

The “grace period will expire soon” If there’s one thing that’ll rile people up more than a robot blasting them with a laser cannon, it’s having to create a new account. That’s somethingHelldivers 2players will have to do pretty sharpish, as Arrowhead announce mandatory account linking between Steam and Playstation Network. Why? Safety and security apparently. In Arrowhead’sannouncement post, they say that account linking wasn’t mandatory when Helldivers 2 launched because of the technical issues the game faced at the time....

Venture inside your Deck to make a permanent storage upgrade Here’s the thing: I’ll gladly show you how to install an SSD in aSteam Deck, but be warned that it’s by far the trickier of your two storage upgrade options. Whereas adding amicroSD cardis as easy as pushing it into the dedicated slot, swapping out the Deck’s internal drive involves fiddling with someseriously sensitive components. It’s not for the faint of heart nor the shaky of hand, and unlike the majority cool things you can do with Valve’s handheld PC – be it adding fun plugins withDecky Loaderor unleashing its versatileDesktop Mode– swapping the SSD does require a fair few tools....

Offer reassurance that Vanguard doesn’t take screenshots of anything except the game itself The already controversial decision to add the anti-cheat tool used in shooterValoranttoLeague of Legendshas seemingly caused developers Riot Games even more of a headache. The studio have issued a lengthy assurance that - at least as far as they know - the new anti-cheat software isn’t causing players’ hardware to end up bricked, despite various reports of major issues after its introduction....

Nintendo’s best-ever peripheral lives on among Itch.io developers I didn’t have a Game Boy Camera as a lad, partly because I couldn’t afford one, and partly because my “friends” used to troll me (“bullying”, I think we called it back then) about my Game Boy. Amongst other things, they’d reach over and flick the power off while I was playing The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. I didn’t finish that game for 15 years....

Better stay friendly with the prophets, then “Nosophobia” is the fear of disease, “bathophobia” is the fear of depths, and “devlogphobia” is a mixture of nosophobia and bathophobia produced by reading Steam posts aboutNorland, a systems-rich and plague-ridden medieval colony sim from developers Long Jaunt and Hooded Horse, publisher ofManor Lords. Norland is sort ofThe SimsmeetsDwarf FortressmeetsRimWorld. It gives you charge of several new kingdoms that have sprouted from the corpse of a fallen Empire and are now feuding for supremacy....

Need a hint for today’s Connections? Read our guide for help with Connections #327 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....

Eight hours of fan service Happy May 3rd,Battlestar Galacticafans! Remember what John Dune said about living long and prospering? He said: Oh, look, objectively excellent dogfighterStar Wars: Squadronsis under two quid onSteam. As Edwin pointed out to me, that’s about the price of a third of latte, although he does pay London prices. Also, Edwin, are you going around trying to buy the dregs of people’s lattes? I cannot judge. Were it in short supply, I too would debase myself for caffeine in an instant....

Plus, rattly robot skeletons! The originalSteamWorld Heistwas an absolute treat, slamming the charming robotic world of the SteamWorld series together with a 2D take on the turn-basedstrategyof your XCOMs and Valkyria Chronicles and such. WithSteamWorld Heist 2recently revealedfor an August release on PC, developers Thunderful have teased some more details on the sequel’s shiny new job system. The job system adds aFinal Fantasy XIV-like job-switching element to assembling your crew of robotic pirates, letting you assign them various different classes that specialise in all the things you’d expect....

Zombies love me, fish fear me. Well, swaggle me horns and fasten me timbers so they stop shivering like that, because the noise is quite irritating. Welcome back to another edition ofPlundertales- my quest to conquerstrategy gameTotal War: Warhammer 3without ever stepping foot on dry land. If you don’t know the other rules by now, I can only assume you’ve been living under an extremely specific type of rock that changes nothing about your life except preventing you from reading theprevioustwoeditionsof this column....

Clancy a game? The above headline comparison aside - which I think you can spin positively, given that the Expendables is actually quite a successful film franchise - XDefiant is sort of Ubisoft’s Smash Bros. Like a toddler wilfully taking toy soldiers from different boxes while the shop owner looks on seething, it smooshes together factions from other Ubisoft shooters includingSplinter Cell,Far Cry, Ghost Recon andWatch Dogs, pitting these hardened headpoppers against each other in arena-based combat with some MOBA-ish passive or active abilities and ultimates....

It’s out July 25th this year If you’re unfamiliar with the series, you need to know two things. One, the textures haven’t been updated since the early 1800’s, and two, no-one cares, because the games are too much fun to worry about it. What they lack in visual sparkle, they make up for by having countless enemies on screen at the same time. Earth Defense Force 6, then, does not appear to revolutionise the veteran franchise, but does include the following features, viaSteam....