The Maw - 2nd-6th January 2024

Our weekly news liveblog

Happy new year all. What’s the weather like where you are? We’ve got Amber and Yellow warnings in London - I do not understand what these terms mean, but I’m going to add a Sapphire warning for escalating Maw activity. The creature was pretty lively over the Xmas weekend, but Graham managed to soothe it with posts aboutgaming-related new year resolutionsand, of all things,the Spike Video Game Awards. We can expect the Maw’s petulance to mount during January, a lean month for announcements and revelations, but there are a few tasty morsels in the offing - a newPrince of PersiaandTekken 8, for instance. Fingers crossed we can build up some kind of momentum.

Our live coverage of this event has finished.

IT ISMONDAY(Ed:TUESDAY). Spin up the August Journoplasmic Apparatus! Top up the hamster’s water bottle! Oh, and FEED THE MAW.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Some morning pick-me-up music.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Cruelty Squad developer Consumer Softproducts, real name Ville Kallio, is making another non-linear shooter thingy with explosively odd aesthetics -Psycho Patrol R. It’s described as “a mecha FPS hybrid policing and punishment simulator set in the decayed state of Pan-Europa. You play as an officer of the European Federal Police, a V-Stalker pilot of Psycho Patrol, a special unit tasked with solving mental crime, among other things.” Sounds like A Lot.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Somebody’s joined together a lot of dots relating to NCsoft’srumouredMMO based on the Horizon series from Guerrilla Games.

Everything I have found about Horizon MMO (MMORPG to be precise):The game is now essentially confirmed to be in development, as an NCSoft employee posted a job listing on LinkedIn with a codename logo stylized similarly to the logo of Horizon games.- It’s developed under the…pic.twitter.com/Xykp1sp1o3

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

As passed on by Alice0, Volition’s former lead video editor spent Xmasfinalising a mod that makes Cloud’s sword in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake less flashy. How many prosperous modding careers have begun as somebody taking issue with one, relatively minor detail of a blockbuster game? (I’ve only ever played the PS4 version of FF7R - I hear that the sword FX are much more overbearing in the PC version.)

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Another heads-up from Alice0: there’s now a demo forThe Majestic, in which you are a fancy bird exploring a world of floating islands and non-floating forests. The blurb is a bit of a rich brew - “delve through time and find yourself in a cozy narrative woven with love, friendship, and family” - but the flying bits are appealing. No, it doesn’t have Jim Carrey in it.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Hello! Currently, we can’t do much about its placement in Latest unfortunately - the best we can manage is a permanent spot on the Homepage spotlight block! - but I will add it to the purple bar right at the top, that’s a good shout!

–Katharine Castle

“Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world Star Wars game is set to release late this year,” the Disney Parks blog post reads. Hopefully this heralds a more concrete confirmation from Ubisoft themselves very soon.

–Katharine Castle

If you’ve been keeping up with the daily free games over on the Epic Games Store this holiday, you may be keen to hear thattoday’s freebieis the quite good Survivors-like,20 Minutes Till Dawn!

–Katharine Castle

–Graham Smith

Here’s our full post on 20 Minutes Till Dawn, the VampSurvivorslike, beingfree to keep from the Epic Games Store.

–Graham Smith

First Cut: Samurai Duel is a 2D swordfighting game where a connecting blow means instant death - part Nidhogg, part Bushido Blade. Itnow has a January 17th release date.

–Graham Smith

ScummVM hasbeen updatedand now supports 50 new games, including Muppet Treasure Island and the Vampire Diaries game Jenny Nicholson plays inthe best video on the internet.

–Graham Smith

…IT IS WEDNESDAY. Sorry for the lack of updates here - I managed to lock myself out of the CMS overnight. Or rather, my computer did. It’s logged me out of everything. Ugh, how I loathe computers. I’d hate to write about them for a living or something. Anyway, FEED THE MAW.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Let’s continue today’s theme of hateful computers by listening to the ending song from Portal 2 (beware spoilers in the lyrics).

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

CD Projekt Red’s chief strategy officer Adam Kiciński has toldParkietthat the company are interested neither in being acquired, nor (currently) in making any acquisitions, as passed on byVGC. Speaking via machine translation, Kiciński said that “we are not interested in purchases that would only aim to include the acquired companies in our group and consolidate their financial results”, which sounds a bit like a subtweet to me. Who could it be aimed at? I suspect the answer rhymes with “eraser”.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

A late Xmas present:the full 1.0 release of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall’s Unity remaster. It’sfree on Steam.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

The forthcoming Minecraft movie will apparently star Jack Black as Steve, as rumoured byDeadline. Don’t worry, I’m sure they have Chris Pratt on speed-dial if Black changes his mind.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Before all the computer nonsense happened I was going to liveblogthis, intriguing colony management game set in the atmosphere of Venus. It’s the work of a solo dev and is out 22nd January.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Your first Game Pass additions this month are Close To The Sun (3rd Jan), Hell Let Loose (4th Jan), Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Figment (9th Jan), Super Mega Baseball 4 and We Happy Few (11th Jan), and the Resident Evil 2 remake and Those Who Remain (16th Jan). A real up-and-down crop there: Those Who Remain is as dreadful as Resident Evil 2’s remake is glorious. We Happy Few is in the middle - lots of promising ideas but a bit of a mess.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Here’san interview with horror shooter GTFO developers 10 Chambers about their new heist thingy Den Of Wolves. It includes musings about potential in-game AR-style features, and some spicy thoughts on what open betas are actually for.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

I would say that only adds to its mystery, wouldn’t you?

–Katharine Castle

Very decent and very grim stealth game A Plague Tale: Innocence is thelatest game free to keep from Epic Games Store for the next 24 hours. I personally enjoyed my time shooing rats away with torchlight (when not being horribly eaten by said rats), so I think it’s well worth the price of nothing!

–Matt Jarvis

Here’sa few more details from CD Projekt Red’s former CEOdiscussing the studio’s complete lack of interest in being acquired (but potential interest in acquiring others one day), as shared by Edwin earlier.

–Matt Jarvis

This month’s PC Games Pass offerings have been revealed, headlined by horror game masterpiece Resident Evil 2 Remake and Viking whopper Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Close to the Sun, Hell Let Loose and We Happy Few also make an appearance (or reappearance, depending!)

–Matt Jarvis

Just over six months after it left early access, Dave the Diver hashit an impressive sales milestone of 3 million copies sold. Not bad for an indie game from an unknown publisher! (Please, please, I swear it’s a joke)

–Matt Jarvis

IT IS THURSDAY. Just one more day and we can end this sick charade and go back to being on holiday. FEED THE MAW.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

We’ve been following the story around this. As you’ve probably guessed, one reason I haven’t covered it is that I don’t want to give (even critical) publicity to something that could be hate speech. That aside, the game just doesn’t seem particularly intriguing beyond its headline gimmick. I’m interested to see what other devs do with Steamboat Willie, however.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

As reported byPCGamer, 13-year-old Willis Gibson has apparently become the first person to “beat” Tetris on NES by surviving for long enough to reach the game’s “true killscreen”, a feat otherwise only achieved by bot players.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Look at that, mech piloting in Starfield, care of modder Jared Kohr. ThanksVG247.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Twitch’snew policywhich prohibits “implied nudity” goes into effect today. According to a statement, “this update is in response to a recent meta on Twitch in which streamers use black censor bars or other items to block their bodies or clothing, or position the camera frame such that the viewer is led to believe that the streamer is fully or partially nude.”

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Rockfish haveblogged a bitabout the process of porting well-good starfighter sim Everspace 2 to Unreal Engine 5, which has wrought some entertaining havoc (as the developer notes, this reflects the inevitable teething troubles of moving between versions, not anything to do with Unreal Engine 5 in itself).

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

For reasons unclear, people are remaking Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness - popularly considered to be the worst Lara outing ever - in Unity and Unreal Engine. Here’s a video of the Unity one. It’s all totally unofficial, obviously. ThanksDSOGaming.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Robocop: Rogue City is probably getting a New Game+ mode.

Many citizens have been asking about a New Game + for RoboCop: Rogue City. We’ve heard you.So stay tuned for more information on this topic in the weeks to come.Until then: Stay out of trouble 🫡pic.twitter.com/UyAZmcNyE8

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

The latest Star Citizen"Legatus" supporter bundlecontains every ship in the game and costs… $48,000. If you are minded to invest, can I also interest you in some magic beans I’ve just found under my bed? They cost $1000 a bean, cash upfront. I’m happy to pay for postage. ThanksPCG.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy is currentlyfree to keep from the Epic Games Store. You’ve got a week to grab this one.

–Graham Smith

Niklaus Wirth, the creator of several programming languages including Pascal, and a pioneer of several principles of programming languages, has died. Through his work Wirth “defined the foundations of modern programming languages,” saidEpic founder Tim Sweeney on X. “‘Power through simplicity, simplicity through generality’ was the name of the game. He made programming better for everyone.”

–Graham Smith

Apex Legends' first crossover event willbegin on January 9thand bring Aerith, the Buster Sword, Materia and other elements from Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth to the battle royale.

–Graham Smith

IT IS FRIDAY. All our compass needles are pointing in different directions and the walls have begun to sweat. FEED THE MAW.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

There’sanother Tribes 3 playtesthappening, if you missed the last one. It’s only running for 24 hours, however.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

MSI are teasing a hardware announcement of some kind. More competition for Steam Deck?

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Some morning music.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Asynchronous multiplayer dungeon-delver Phantom Abyss hits the big 1.0 on January 25th. I haven’t played the early access build but was impressed by the announcement trailer. It’s earned itselfa Very Positive steam rating.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

As spotted byPCG, “Metropolis 1998 is a fresh take on the modern city simulation experience in a retro pixel art style.” I like the cut of those isometric visuals. Find it onItchandSteam.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is getting praise for the fact that 7-year-old GPUs can run it on Ultra. Many are citing the fact that the developers prioritised the Switch version first as the reason behind this. Nice to see in a world where games are increasingly larger than life and pushing the limits of GPUs even two years old.

GTX 1060, a 7 year old entry level GPU, is good for 4k60 Ultra Settings in the new Prince of Persia. Wow.pic.twitter.com/JnMCOAhxxy

–Jeremy Blum

It does lookrather cool.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

It’s not an original take to point out that Baldur’s Gate 3 is a horny game, but apparently now it is putting Series X-S users in digital horny jail. Their consoles are automatically uploading clips of awkward video game sex to the sharing server (viaPC Gamer), so their accounts are getting bonked on the head by Xbox. Tangential to PC, but I find this v. funny. Imagine having to contact support. “Can you make fantasy bear pornography come on my telly please?” I’d rather get a new Xbox.

–Alice Bell

Hideo Kojima has compared his forthcoming horror game OD to his early noughties solar-powered GBA project Boktai, and I havethoughts about it.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

There have been19 job losses at Bossa Studios- best of luck if you’re one of the people affected.

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

I had no idea this was a thing. Sounds fun!

–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

–Matt Jarvis

Got a spare £46,000 laying around?There’s a new way for you to spend it: by buying over 175 ships for Star Citizen, in a new bundle costing more than the average person makes here in the UK in a year. I mean, what possible better options could there be? I can’t think of any!

–Matt Jarvis

Baldur’s Gate 3 has plenty of heartfelt stories, but this real-life tale of howa fan’s father and long-time CPRG player diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease ended up with a touching tribute in NPC formmight outdo them all. End your week with a beautiful example of how video games bring people together and create memories.

–Matt Jarvis

Swipe ‘em up strategy game Reigns: Three Kingdomsarrives on PC next weekafter over a year of mobile exclusivity via the Netflix app.

–Graham Smith

You can watch Persona 3 Reload’s intro cinematicahead of time, if you can’t wait for next month’s remake to arrive, or if you just love anime intros and J-Pop.

–Graham Smith

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is one of my favourite films because it’s about hope, and about love enduring in the wake of heartbreak.

Areyouready to take another shot at love? Because there’s a Tribes 3: Rivals playtest available now, if you want to get a headstart. Edwin mentioned this yesterday but the test has been extended and you canget access via Steamuntil 8pm EST today. The test’s end will be good practice for when all the servers are switched off a couple years after it releases properly, having failed to find the audience it deserves as per all previous Tribes games.

–Graham Smith

Portal: Revolution, a fully-voiced, eight-hour Portal 2 prequel with 40 new test chambers, isout now and looks great.

–Graham Smith