Our weekly news liveblog, with this week’s top videogame releases
As W.H. Auden once wrote: “our apparatniks will continue making the usual squalid mess called History: all we can pray for is that Videogame News Writers may still appear to blithe it.” Welcome one and all to another week of addled product journalism care of your ever-salivating host, the Maw, ravenous hype god and certainly not a silly metaphor I’ve come up with to make my job sound grander than it should be.
This week’s menu of new videogame releases: world-jumping squad tactics adaptationStargate: Timekeepers(23rd Jan); wild-eyed Soviet job simTrans-Siberian Railway Simulator: Prologue(23rd Jan);Valheim-ish fantasy survival gameEnshrouded(24th Jan, early access); fugitive Asgardian town-builderRoots Of Yggdrasil(24th Jan, early access); moody anime fighterUnder Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes(24th Jan); rolly-polly shooterGo Mecha Ball(25th Jan); asymmetrical multiplayer dungeon rompPhantom Abyss(25th Jan); finger-jabbing courtroom dramaApollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy(25th Jan); jaunty yakuza RPGLike A Dragon: Infinite Wealth(25th Jan); infant witch adventureThe Cauldron Kids: The Summoning of Mr. Vermicelli(25th Jan); hand-drawn horror MMORPGMad World - Age of Darkness(25th Jan); high-kicking octa-quel (is it a word?)Tekken 8(26th Jan).
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
IT IS MAWNDAY. Lock S-Foils in attack position! If you don’t have any S-Foils, flapping your arms will do. FEED THE MAW.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
I suspect we’re going to spend a fair bit of this week writing about a game that came out last week - Palworld, whichexceeded one million concurrent players on Steamover the weekend. At the time of writing it’s stillcomfortably aheadof perennial Steam chart-topper Counter-Strike 2.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
The just-announcedDeviatorlooks a heck of a lot like Hollow Knight.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Old School RuneScape is getting an (optional) HD mode, Jagex have announced. It’ll support fully dynamic lighting and new fog effects, and is the first of several enhancements detailedon the developer’s blog.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
If you’re thinking about picking up that there Palworld, know that there are currently some differences between the Steam and Microsoft Store/Game Pass versions due to their different certification processes for updates, as reported byWindows Central.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
This vaguely Llamasoft-looking thing came out over the weekend. TitledKitten Burst, it casts you as a vapourwave cat surfing the cosmic wilds and doing bullet hells. It’s got a demo and initial reactions seem positive.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
An RPS piece from Jamesabout a new Steam Deck update that tells you what the performance settings actually do.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
I’m all about being pithy! Unless I’m being horribly long-winded.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
It certainly has style.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
All is not well at Gothic and Risen developers Piranha Bytes. The below follows areport from last weekthat the company is “on the verge of closure”.
pic.twitter.com/E9FyQ42LAB
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
No Case Should Remain Unsolvedcame out last week, and appears to be a pretty decent detective game with a novel join-up-the-memories mechanic.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Watch out, on-the-go Monster Hunters. According toOverclock3D, Capcom’s latest DRM update has broken Monster Hunter Rise on Steam Deck.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Colossal Order have shared plans for Cities: Skylines 2’s modding features, which will now launch feature by feature, as detailed onSteam. “The modding support will roll out gradually as the features enter beta and we won’t wait for all of them to be fully completed before setting them live,” the developers write.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Reutersreports that CD Projekt’s next Witcher game, codenamed Polaris, will enter the “production phase” this year, with “around 400 people working on the project by the middle of the year” according to CEO Adam Badowski.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Matt Jarvis
The Joker - but notthatJoker - will beSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s first free DLC character, arriving in March, as Rocksteady detail their plans for the multiplayer Arkham follow-up’s post-launch seasons.
–Matt Jarvis
Surprise, surprise,someone’s already modded actual Pokémon into Palworld. If you’ve ever wanted to see Misty wield a shotgun or set Pikachu to hard labour mining rocks, wish granted I guess.
–Matt Jarvis
VR studio Wimo Games, developers behind Battle Bows and Micro Machines: Mini Challenge Mayhem,have closed their doors.
–Matt Jarvis
For the Final Fantasy XIV fans out there, FF11 crossover event The Maidens' Rhapsody isback until February 5th. It’s the same event run in past years, with the same gear up for grabs, but if you’ve missed it in the past, now’s a good time to nab it.
–Matt Jarvis
Black Mesa: Classic is a Half-Life 1 engine demake of the Half-Life 2 engine remake of Half-Life 1, andit has a new demo.
–Matt Jarvis
IT IS TUESDAY. Today the Maw is only manifest in shades of green, so if your veggie soup starts bubbling oddly, step back from the table and contact your local Videogame News Exorcist. Anyway, let’s all FEED THE MAW.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Riot Games havelaid off 530 people- “11% of our workforce, with the biggest impact to teams outside of core development”, according to CEO Dylan Jadeja. As part of that, the company are cutting back the Legends of Runeterra team, and are shutting down their Riot Forge publishing label.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Pocketpair have patched the Microsoft Store PC version of Palworld. “Numerous bugs have been fixed, including sound issues,” the developer wrote on Xitter. There are still some sizeable bugs to address, however - black screens on start-up, controllers not being recognised, and the option to quit the game not appearing (is it a bug or a feature, etc, etc).
[Known Bugs after Xbox Update]The following bugs have been identified in this version and we are currently working on a fix.We apologize for inconvenience.・The game launches to a static black screen.・The game launches to a…
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
As teased a week or two back, Teyon haveadded a New Game+ mode to Robocop: Rogue Citytogether with a new difficulty setting, “There Will Be Trouble”.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Speaking toIGN, Dragon’s Dogma 2 director Hideaki Itsuno has offered a spirited defence of the game’s lack of a traditional fast travel feature. Like its predecessor, the game lets you warp around by spending pricey Ferrystones at Port Crystals, but you can also now buy passage between cities by ox cart, with the caveat that you might be ambushed enroute.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Open world RPG Dread Delusion’s Clockwork Kingdom update is releasing on January 25th.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
4X-adjacent god game The Universim haslaunched out of early access, in case you’ve already had your fill of Dominions 6.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
There’s a smidge more info about Avowed’s combat, ability and area design onXbox Wire. Sounds like it’ll be quite freeform in terms of how you progress/customise your character.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Circus horror game Reveil is out March 6th.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Announced many years ago with a new gameplay trailer out this week,AI Limitis a post-apocalyptic sci-fi action-RPG in the “Bloodborne with anime girls” tradition.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
I’m in the mood for some lobby music. You ever really fall in love with some lobby music?
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Palworld had a million concurrent players this weekend, butearlier today it cleared 1.8 million concurrent players. That’s the second highest ever, knocking Counter-Strike 2 out of position, with only PUBG now ahead of it.
–Graham Smith
Lil' Guardsman is a Papers, Pleaselike in which you play as a 12-year-old substitute guard at the castle gates in a fantasy kingdom, and must decide who to admit and who to deny entry from the cast of warriors, goblins and dragon-owners who appear before you. It’sout now.
–Graham Smith
IT IS WEDNESDAY. I’ve fled my flat in tears to avoid all the building noise upstairs. Today’s updates are officially brought to you by Cafe Neros. Please let there be no invading packs of schoolchildren. FEED THE MAW.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Immortality developer Sam Barlow is working on no less than two new survival horror games -Project CandProject D. Will either be similar to Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, which Barlow also worked on?
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Data-miner billbil-kun, whom various games journalism sages are calling “highly reliable”,saysthat Death Stranding 2’s official title is Death Stranding 2 - On The Beach and that an announcement is coming in the next two weeks or so.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Right, enough faffing around. It’s time to post some Fatboy Slim.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Sea of Thieves Season 11 islivewih a revamp of the game’s core voyaging loop, amongst other things.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Here’s a Diablo 4 Season of the Construct gameplay trailer.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Aftermath’s Gita Jackson haswrittenabout working conditions during their time at Kotaku and VICE. Little excerpt: “The key to being a daily video game blogger - or a daily blogger of any kind, but especially one in an industry as small as video games - is that you both have to be constantly producing and constantly consuming.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
I’ve been digging back intoAutomaton’s Pocketpair interview, which we shared earlier in the week as part of our Palworld coverage. There’s some moderately interesting chat about the dos and don’ts of making a survival game, with thoughts on Enshrouded, the developer’s previous Craftopia and, of course, Pokemon.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Pocketpairhave shared their early access roadmap for Palworld(this is our full RPS write-up). It’s got arena PvP in it.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Riot-owned Hypixel Studios are not affected by this week’s mass layoffs.
Yesterday, Riot Games made an announcement regarding their future plans, which include layoffs. We’ve since received a number of questions from our community regarding the impact on Hypixel Studios. We want to clarify that Hypixel Studios is not affected by this announcement, and…
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Here’s a littleExputer interview with Remedyabout Alan Wake 2’s forthcoming DLCs, and whether they will tee up the plot of Control 2.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Grindstone have announcedPreserve, a hexagonal “nature-builder” that seems similar to Townscaper, where you play cards to place terrain tiles that alchemise into beautiful/cosy landscapes.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Iron Gate has shared a little more about Valheim’s Ashlands update -here’s our write-up.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Roots Of Yggdrasil isout in Steam Early Access.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Supermassive Games' Until Dawn - the PS4 exclusive that set the playable horror-movie template for The Quarry and the Dark Pictures Anthology - will reportedly bethe next PlayStation exclusive released on PC. We’ll apparently find out more in the next two weeks.
–Matt Jarvis
Dungeons & Dragons’ first virtual reality gameprobably won’t be like Baldur’s Gate 3 in VR, but why not live in hope? Especially as, for now, we don’t know anything about the official spin-off from Demeo makers Resolution Games except that it exists.
–Matt Jarvis
Balcony gardening sim Pocket Oasishas a beautiful hand-painted look and meditative vibes. It seems lovely, and it’ll be out in May - but there’s a demo you can check out now.
–Matt Jarvis
–Matt Jarvis
Metal Gear Solid 4 may not have escaped the PlayStation 3 just yet - fingers crossed for Master Collection Vol. 2 - but you can still get a taste of Old Man Snake on PC thanks to Fortnite, where MGS1/2’s Solid Snake and his aged appearance in MGS4 arenow available as free unlockable skins via the battle royale’s battle pass. Raiden is rumoured to be on the way - though in his MGS2 form, not Revengeance’s Cyborg Ninja. There’s a bunch of other cute nods to the whole MGS too, from ! alert emotes to a new cardboard box item.
–Matt Jarvis
IT IS THURSDAY. Somebody accidentally drew the wards with strawberry jam instead of blood last night, and now the epicentre of the Maw is 300 metres wider. FEED IT.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
As reported byKotaku, Outriders dev People Can Fly has laid off over 30 people who were working on Square Enix’s Project Gemini.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Reuters reports thatChinese regulators are thinking twiceaboutrecently proposed rulesto curb in-game spending and rewards.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Here’s a Steamdemofor a side-on anime girl brawler in which you defeat monsters for materials to… bake bread? Instant GOTY.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
AnotherKotakureport: Destroy All Humans remake developers Black Forest Games have apparently laid off about 50% of their staff - 50 people.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Bay 12have shared a bit moreabout the Dwarf Fortress Steam edition’s impending Adventure Mode update. The post includes insight on difficulties creating the sandbox, and the possibility of “proceduralizing” magic. An excerpt: “you can offend the gods and become a giant rat for a week, or offend a mummy and become cursed for the rest of your miserable short life.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
According toThe Verge, Microsoft are laying off almost 2000 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees. Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has left in the process, and Blizzard’suntitled survival game projecthas been canceled.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Russian civil war RTS Last Train Home is getting some DLC - Legion Tales. Out 1st February, it adds 10 new missions and look at that, we have a teaser trailer.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
King’s Ordersis a medieval strategy game with a twist - all your commands have to be carried to your various underlings by messenger, and messengers can be intercepted.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Graham Smith
–Graham Smith
Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition now has a PC release date of March 21st, and a new trailer which details its PC features including an unlocked framerate and ultra widescreen support.
–Graham Smith
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy isout now on Steam. Ourreviewwent up earlier this week, with Katharine calling it the “lesser trilogy in Capcom’s long-standing lawyer ‘em up”, but one with plenty of highlights.
–Graham Smith
–Graham Smith
Double Eleven have released more information onbuilding in the newly 3D Prison Architect 2, with a video to go along with:
–Graham Smith
Skull And Bones, Ubisoft’s much-delayed pirate live service game, will run an open beta from February 8th until the 11th. The beta will be available via the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft Store and progress will carry over to the full game when it finally sets sail on February 16th.
–Graham Smith
Everyone has saved their release date news for today, it seems. Abiotic Factor looks like Half-Life, if Half-Life were designed for co-op japes. It’s got a demoout now on Steamand the full game is coming on May 2nd:
–Graham Smith
Dwarf Fortress’s Adventure mode is coming to the Steam version soon, and it’ll include several revisions for Demigod players (that’s easy mode) toadd tutorials and provide more player direction.
–Graham Smith
IT’S FRIDAY. All Videogame News Writers gain +5 Second Wind. Let’s get it done. FEED THE MAW.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Nexon’s live service multiplayer melee game Warhaven isshutting downafter just seven months in early access. Did you play this one?
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Some cheery morning music: Bump Of Chicken’sSleep Walking Orchestra, which you might recognise as the OP for wholesome fantasy gourmet anime Delicious In Dungeon.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Sand Door Studio’s highly Hades-esqueLysfanga: The Time Shift Warriorlaunches February 13th, with a demo coming on February 5th, publishers Quantic Dream have announced.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Bloomberghas some additional details on Blizzard’s now-abandoned survival game, which was codenamed Odyssey. Amongst other things, the developers once envisaged multiplayer maps that could support 100 players at once. To achieve this, Blizzard decided to switch development from Unreal Engine to their in-house Synapse engine, but this caused “significant problems” and appears to have contributed to the project’s eventual cancellation.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
The Enshrouded devshave written a little postabout the game’s launch bugs and issues, which range from dodgy frame rates through server access difficulties to the timer for world chunk resets being a bit too leisurely. They’re also working on a feature that lets you snap building parts to pre-existing structures.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
As reported byGamesradar, somebody’s put together an unofficial Pokedex-stylePalpediafor Palworld, offering guides to all the monsters in the game.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
There’s ademoout for Arco, which Katharine recentlydescribedas “one of the most fascinating blends of turn-based and real-time tactics I’ve seen in ages”.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic - a game I know only through Sin’sexcellent write-ups-is getting a big new updatewhich introduces the first two missions of the campaign, new maps and various other new features and quality-of-life tweaks.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
As Edwin noted this morning, Ruiner devs Reikon Games havereportedly laid off over half of the studio, with dozens of staff across “all possible departments” said to be affected.
–Matt Jarvis
Palworld developers Pocketpair arebattling multiplayer cheaters plaguing their official servers, but admit it’s a “difficult” problem to solve straight away.
–Matt Jarvis
Final Fantasy XIV won’t follow The Last of Us and Fallout with its own live-action TV series, as The Witcher producers confirm their ambitious adaptation - announced five years ago - is now “dead”.
–Matt Jarvis
Honkai: Star Rail version 2.0 has a release date, adding dreamy new realm Penacony to the space RPG in early February - plus some gravity-flipping traversal puzzles.
–Matt Jarvis
Stardew Valley update 1.6 now has all major new content in placeand is in the bug-fixing and polish phase, according to developer Eric Barone.
–Graham Smith
Meme-made-real fangame Bloodborne Kart has been contacted by Sony and consequentlywon’t be called Bloodborne Kart anymore. It’s going to be delayed while its makers scrub the branding off, but it is still coming.
–Graham Smith
Dungeonborne is adark fantasy extraction dungeon crawlerin which players delve underground, fight skeletons, grab loot, and try to escape alive - or risk it all by delving deeper. It’ll run an open alpha during Steam Next Fest from February 2nd until the 12th.
–Graham Smith
