Our weekly news liveblog, with this week’s best/bizarrest videogame releases
If the rumours are true, it’s a time of much rejoicing for Switchers and StayPlationers desperate to get their mitts on the likes ofStarfield. But of course, the onlyrealwinner here is the Maw, that ghastly extra-dimensional monster that hungers to gobble up the entire universe unless we can placate it with regular offerings of videogame news. Here are a few new PC games we’re minded to feed to the beast this week: surreal metroidvaniaUltros(13th Feb); neoclassical multiplayer puzzlerIslands Of Insight(13th Feb); period journo-bothererNews Tower(13th Feb); colonial spook-hunting RPGBanishers: Ghosts Of New Eden(13th Feb); bullet hell roguelikeDeep Rock Galactic: Survivor(14th Feb); retro Croft trilogyTomb Raider I-III Remastered(14th Feb); hellish boarding simHelskate(15th Feb); barmy animal sandboxGoat Simulator 3(15th Feb); open ocean loot ‘em upSkull And Bones(16th Feb).
As ever, you can keep track of this week’s news-gatherings and other nonsense in the Maw liveblog below. Did we miss an important game or announcement? Make haste to the comments to let us know about it.
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
IT IS MONDAY. The creature waxes wroth! FEED IT.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Helldivers 2 is a popular game, but it’s been hit by a fair few technical troubles since launching last week. Here’s an update from Arrowhead’s CEO and creative director.
A message to the community in regards to our latest server update.@helldivers2@ArrowheadGS#Helldivers2.pic.twitter.com/lwriSFbBbK
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Blizzard havelaid out plansfor “revitalising” Overwatch 2, and more specifically, “striving to make PvP gameplay more rewarding and fun and providing greater transparency for players in-game” over the course of Season 9 and beyond.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Here’san interviewwith David Pierce, senior game designer at Bethesda and a member of the Elder Scrolls 6 team. What does Pierce look for in a videogame story? “Human-scale stakes. The world (maybe even the galaxy) needs my help, but at the end of the day, there has to be something that I can connect with on a personal level.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Former Crytek and Arkane dev Julien Eveillé has announcedThreshold, a “short, dark and atmospheric first person exploration game”.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Squidgy farmimg sim Slime Rancher 2 has receiveda bunch of new gadgetsas part of the year’s first major update. Here’s an overview trailer.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
As spotted byPCG, From Software’s parent company Kadokawa have dampened hopes of an Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC release in February in their latestearnings call, commenting only that “we are currently working hard on the development of DLC for ELDEN RING but we have not announced a release date at this time”.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
According toShannon Liao of Inverse, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer held a town hall meeting last week in which he reassured Microsoft employees that the company won’t stop making Xbox consoles anytime soon, even if they do start releasing first-party games on other consoles.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Vampyr-esque dark fantasy RPG The Thaumaturge has been delayed to March 4th.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
As Edwin noted earlier, FromSoftware owners Kadokawa havedampened hopes that Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree might release this month- despite recent rumours and backend updates hinting otherwise - as they say there’s still no update “at this time”.
Of particular note in the earnings report is a reference to “major DLC” said to be in the works as the devs look to support the game in the “medium to long term” - could that mean another expansion to come?
–Matt Jarvis
Former Dead Cells lead designer Sébastien Benard is… not cool with publisher Motion Twin’s decision to end development earlier this month. “Having seen first hand the actual situation behind the scene, I can honestly say I’m glad to not be part of this anymore,” he wrote, in Discord comments picked up byEurogamer. “The official statement is total marketing bullshit, the way this situation happened is on a whole different level.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Our liveblog tech is definitely not designed to be used like this, and I’m in the process of negotiating with our valiant tech people about various changes. The trouble is, they have a lot on their plate! I’ll keep everybody posted. Suggestions very welcome in the meantime.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Matt Jarvis
Days from release, Part-Divinity, part-Persona RPGThe Thaumaturge has been given a two-week delayto find some breathing room from the crowded February release slate, developers Fool’s Theory have announced.
–Matt Jarvis
Helldivers 2 has overtaken God of War and Spider-Man to becomePlayStation’s biggest PC release to date. Could this mean we see more PC releases alongside their PS5 counterparts in the future? We can only hope!
–Matt Jarvis
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Please join us for a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast.Hear from Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty as they share updates on the Xbox business.pic.twitter.com/TxwWJVUbgx
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
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–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
IT IS TUESDAY. How is it only Tuesday? Did the Maw eat one of the weekdays again? FEED IT.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
The Minecraft launchernow supports Quick Playon Java and Bedrock Edition, letting you bounce back into a recently-visited world without going through all the menus. “The Quick Play bar has a total of five slots, so once they are all filled, playing a sixth world will cause the oldest world in the bar to be bumped off the list,” reads the above-linked post. “If you want to make sure a world (or more) stays in the Quick Play bar, you can simply pin it, so that newer worlds won’t bump it down.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
IGNhas a big report about the games industry’s mass layoffs this and last year, which probes beyond the standard “companies overstaffed during the lockdown boom” narrative.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Posting onDiscord, Rocksteady says Suicide Squad has or had “a major unintended bug” which causes the Burn status effect’s damage to increase so much it “basically meant that if you used a Burn build, every Mastery Level had the same difficulty”. AsPCGnotes, what’s interesting here is that the developers considered leaving it in, because Rocksteady’s hope is that players will “continuously find a new meta and then break it by finding a better one”.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Katharine just posted this in the Slack because she not-so-secretly despises us all.
I saw this so now you have to toopic.twitter.com/aCnfEtpgUZ
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Arrowhead havereleased another Helldivers 2 patch, which addresses server capacity, login access progression and mission rewards.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
GLAAD have released theirinaugural annual reporton “the quantity, quality and diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) characters in video games” during the past year.
An excerpt from the introduction: “Our data shows that 17% of active gamers—nearly 1 in 5—are LGBTQ, a figure that has been replicated and confirmed by Nielsen in multiple recent surveys. Moreover, LGBTQ gamers are as dedicated to gaming as non-LGBTQ gamers in terms of regular time spent playing PC and console games and average financial spend per month. In stark contrast to the fact that 1 in 5 active gamers are LGBTQ, games with LGBTQ content account for less than 2% of all games currently available on consoles.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Extra, extra! Management sim News Tower has launched into early access. It’s all about wallowing in the thrill of old-timey journalism, before journalism became a massive game of chicken with Google’s algorithms. “Dive into the roaring 1930s as you build your media empire in the bustling heart of New York City,” exhorts theSteam page. “Hear the clatter of typewriters, the shouts of newsboys, and the hum of printing presses churning out your latest edition.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Some afternoon music: Chuck Ragan’sFlame in the Flood title theme.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Rhianna Pratchett has weighed in on the question of who owns the rights to the old Discworld adventure games.
This story has been updated with a few clarifications from me. Additionally no one has spoken to us about any re-release being on the cards.https://t.co/G0YnaMSsez
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Xbox have surprise announced a free Dune expansion for Microsoft Flight Simulator - and it’s available now, wouldn’t you know. Here’s a launch trailer, featuring a very tetchy Ornithopter:
–Katharine Castle
Truth.
–Katharine Castle
One final shout-out from me today: go and play thevery good demo for sheepy action roguelike Stand-Alone!
–Katharine Castle
Paradox have dropped ademofor Escape the Mad Empire - “a party-based, rogue-like dungeon crawler with intense and deeply tactical combat.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Pulling from the IGN report into layoffs Edwin linked earlier: magical FPS Immortals Of Aveum reportedlycost $125 million to make and “no one bought it”, according to developers who worked on the project.
–Graham Smith
Horrible cannibal survivasl ‘em up Sons Of The Forest reaches 1.0 next week on February 22nd. We already knew, butthere’s now a trailer that shows some of its new features.
–Graham Smith
Earth Defense Force 6 has beendelayed until this summerfrom its previous “spring” release window. If EA had put $125 million into making a game with the same concept as EDF, I bet it would have sold better.
–Graham Smith
Dead Island 2 arrives on Steam this April after its year of Epic Games Store exclusivity. To fertilise the ground for its arrival, Dead Island: Riptide Definitive Edition isfree to keep from Steamfor the next two days.
–Graham Smith
I’m glad Square Enix continue to release all of their games on PC - eventually.
–Graham Smith
Katharine mentioned it earlier this evening, but here’s afuller poston Microsoft Flight Simulator’s free Dune expansion, which is out now. It lets you pilot the Royal Atreides Ornithopter over Arrakis, with some time trials and a rescue mission to play.
–Graham Smith
Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters is coming to Steam on February 19th. It’s a freeware re-release of Star Control 2, sans the trademark, and it’sbeing released by the original creators.
–Graham Smith
IT’S WEDNESDAY. Bless the halberds and magnetise the shields! Form a Penrose triangle! FEED THE MAW.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
As reported byEurogamer.pl, Bloober Team’s president Piotr Babieno has said that the recent State of Play Silent Hill 2 remake trailer “doesn’t reflect the spirit of the game” (machine translated from Polish). He also noted that Konami are “entirely responsible” for the game’s marketing.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Gematsureport that Sony havetrademarked"Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet" for entertainment goods including games in the USA. Perhaps it’s a collaboration withThe Beastie Boys.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Those Larian people are about to patch Baldur’s Gate 3 again - they’re incorrigible! This one lets you dismiss party members while asking another person to join your crew, and tries to prioritise your character during automatically triggered dialogue so that party members don’t steal the show.
Patch 6 brings more than just romance, with multiple gameplay improvements and fixes to address player-reported issues.Here’s a teaser for what’s coming 👇
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Yoshitaka Murayama, head of Eiyuden developer Rabbit & Bear Studios and the creator of the Suikoden series, haspassed away due to illness.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
EA and Maxis areaddinga Vitiligo skin feature to The Sims 4 via free update.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Ubisoft France employees areon strike todayafter “management offered a budget dedicated to raises that would be lower than inflation for the second year in a row”.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Austin-based Monumental have acquired Kongregate, a games publisher and web portal who were dear to me back in the days when I used to run a Flash gaming blog.GIhas more.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
IT IS THURSDAY. How dull it is to make an end, to rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! FEED THE MAW.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
There have beenlayoffsat Homeworld 3 developer Blackbird Interactive. As reported byGame Developer, these are part of a “realignment plan” at the studio necessitated by “economic pressures outside of our control.” Homeworld 3 was delayed from March till May 13th last week.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Palworld’s community manager has gently suggested that people impatient for new Palworld updates stop calling the game “dead” and play other games instead.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Open world pirate RPGCaribbean Legendhas a 10-20 hour demo that’s going down well among the Steamsters. It’s based on the old Sea Dogs series and inspired by Sid Meier’s Pirates.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Here’sa two hour video interviewwith Grinding Gears about Path Of Exile 2, in which there is talk of WASD and endgames.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Helldivers 2 will “never” have a PvP mode, according to Arrowhead.
Hey; We’ll “never” add a PvP-mode. This is to reduce toxic elements from the community.We want an environment that’s supportive, fun and where we all are fighting on the same side!
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Embracer havereleased their latest financial results.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Stunlock havedevloggedabout what to expect from vampire action-RPG V Rising’s 1.0 update. The offerings include a story finale, a new visual customisation system, and some enhanced weapons. Has anyone here played this much? I missed it when it first came out, but I do like me a vampire game.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Viking management sim Land of the Vikings hasreceived a new updatewhich adds fresh Land for the Vikings to be managed on. Also a new set of resource menus.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Here’s a video from Nightingale devs Inflexion detailing how they’re updating the survival sim for its early access launch on February 20th. There’s mention of changing up the UI/UX, which has been abone of contentionround these parts.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Well-received wizarding FPS Wizordum has had a community mapping jam, and the results are rather fetching.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
No Man’s Sky is getting an Omega update with a swathe of additions, broadly geared towards getting new players involved. Here’s a trailer.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Edwin referenced V Rising’s recent developer update earlier, and here’s afuller poston the updates coming this spring to the vampire survival ‘em up and its PvP, endgame content, armour, and lighting effects.
–Graham Smith
–Graham Smith
A Disco Elysium standalone expansion has reportedly been cancelled and a quarter of the studio’s workforce placed at risk of redundancy,according to sources close to the matter. This is seemingly the third project cancelled in three years, with two projects - one related to Disco Elysium - apparently still in development.
–Graham Smith
–Graham Smith
–Graham Smith
IT IS FRIDAY.Edwin has mysteriously vanished this morning, though we fear he may have been lured into the Maw’s interdimensional vortex. A rescue team is on its way to pull him back to the land of the living, but for now you’ll have to make do with me instead. FEED THE MAW.
–Katharine Castle
The annual DICE Awards took place last night, and Larian will clearly have to build yet another trophy case, as Baldur’s Gate 3 came away with five awards, including Game Of The Year. You can see thefull list of winners here.
–Katharine Castle
Happy 5th Birthday, Metro Exodus! Has it really been that long already? To celebrate, developers 4A Games are teasing the next mainline Metro game that’s coming… “when it’s ready”, according to their Xweet yesterday.
–Katharine Castle
Alan Wake 2 is Remedy’s fastest-selling game yet, shifting over 1.3m copies and selling 50% more than Control managed in half the time, but is still yet to make a penny of profit. Remedy are optimistic, though, with two bits of DLC to come and plans for future updates and “other activities”.
–Matt Jarvis
Palworld developers Pocketpair have outlined their plans to step up anti-cheat measures in the survival game, as players struggle to connect to its official servers due to hackers and other ne’er-do-wells. Among the incoming measures will be a player list functon arriving later this month, followed by a dedicated “external anti-cheat solution” after that. You’ll be able to choose whether you want it in your private and single-player games, though.
–Matt Jarvis
–Matt Jarvis
Elden Ring and Tekken 8 publishers Bandai Namco have cancelled at least five games in development, saying they are working to put the “emphasis on quality” in the future with stricter standards and fewer titles.
–Matt Jarvis
–Graham Smith
Jump King is a famously punishing platformer, but if you’re a glutton for more then there’s good news: five years after its release, itnow has Steam Workshop support and a new modding tool.
–Graham Smith
Rocksteady say thatfixing server and login issues in Suicide Squad is their top priority, but they’re apparently a tough nut to crack and they ask for patience while they work on them.
–Graham Smith
Brighton band Lime Garden released their debut album yesterday, which gives me excuse to share opening track Love Song, which I’ve been listening to regularly since last year.
–Graham Smith
Helldivers 2’s team is likewise working on server issues, but todayh released patch 1.09 which includes crash fixes, matchmaking improvements and some balance tweaks. The fullpatch notes are over on Steam.
–Graham Smith
–Graham Smith
The voice actor Richard Wells, who recorded the “PEGI 18”, etc. that plays before game trailers,says he was paid just €200 (£170) to do it. Wells created a TikTok account on Friday and has already accrued over 17 million views.
–Graham Smith
I need a wee stack of time insensitive free games, fan projects, and other curios that I can slowly dribble out in news posts, for nights like these when the otherwise readily available potential news posts with which to feed the Maw are mostly minor, marginal or mean-spirited. I can and shall do the work to construct such a stack, but if you’ve got a beloved or two that you like to keep an eye on, and that you wish got a little more attention, feel free to share it in the comments.
–Graham Smith
