This week’s most scintillating game releases, plus our weekly newsblog
It’s a short week ‘cos we all had a Bank Holiday yesterday, and Edwin isn’t here today, which means I have donned some thick leather gloves and am standing well back to throw some sticky gobbets atThe Maw. The gobbets in question? Some tasty game releases this week! Plus whatever else we think might be interesting enough in PC gaming news to appease it - and you.
This week in game release news pertinent to me, specifically, isNancy Drew: Mystery Of The Seven Keys(7th May), although you won’t see meplaying it for a while. In more universally interesting news is the 1.0 launch of vamp-‘em-up survival crafting gameV Rising(and in more Universalisly interesting news,Europa Universalis IVis getting an expansion pack calledWinds Of Change) (both 8th May).Crow CountryandCryptmasterbring different but somehow similar spooky puzzle midweek, along with the nextVampire Survivorsupdate Operation Guns, followed by the presumably much more cute than all of thoseLittle Kitty Big City(all 9th May). Busy few days, eh? I’m sure there was something else that came out over the last few days, what was it now? Oh!Hades 2!
We needs must feedThe Maw, an unknowable beast that must have stowed away in Edwin’s bindle, and hopefully the releases above will be enough. But usually it isn’t, which is why you can follow along as we desperately chuck more newskibble into this liveblog. If you want to help you can comment with nutritious news yourself!
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
MY DUDES, IT IS TUESDAY
–Alice Bell
Afterall the kerfuffle over the weekend, Arrowhead’s head arrow Johan Pilestedt has joked about makinga new in-game cloakbased on the reviewbombing Helldivers 2 got. Exceptmaybe it’s not a joke…?
–Alice Bell
The Bathrooms, a sort-of-pisstake of The Backrooms horror copypasta concept, in which you are trapped in a giant and endless school toilet, does actually look cool. I’m into the endless tiles, unironically. Public toilets have big liminal space energy. On the other hand, The Bathrooms is internet-poisoned and mentions “copium” and you have to save a Shiba Inu. This is, of course,anti-cool.
–Alice Bell
Microsoft are shutting down multiple studios including Redfall developers Arkane Austin and the creators of Hi-Fi Rush, Tango Gameworks, asreported by IGN. Other studios hit are Mighty Dog Studios (makers of cutesy mobile game Mighty Doom) and Roundhouse Games, which will have its workforce transferred to Zenimax Online Studios, the Elder Scrolls Online developers. “A small number of roles across select Bethesda publishing and corporate teams will also be eliminated,” said Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios.
–Brendan Caldwell
–Graham Smith
Remedy and Tencent havecalled it a day on their project codenamed Kestrel, which was due to be a premium co-operative multiplayer game. The project began life as a free-to-play co-op game under the codename Vanguard, before being re-tooled after a proof-of-concept late last year. Now Remedy say they’re ditching the project entirely and re-deploying the developers to work on existing franchises - presumably the previously announced Control 2 and co-op Control spin-off.
–Graham Smith
Heading Out is out. Out-out? I’m not sure, but it’s a narrative driving game in which your choices of route, your police chases, the characters you meet along the way, all define the road trip story you’re playing.
–Graham Smith
WEDNESDAY IT IS, MY DUDES
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Nic Reuben
From theSteam page: “For the fighters, we have a roguelike tactical challenge mode with progression across runs. And for the lovers, we have A Walk in the Unlight, a new story campaign that uses the Omenroad format to take your heroes past the edge of the Yondering Lands and into worlds beyond.” No release date yet.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Nic Reuben
Bungie and Sony are giving players free access to three Destiny 2 expansions ahead of The Final Shape’s release in June.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Via surreal_pistachio (whose hidden comment I can’t approve for some reason), sokoban-meets-Zelda game Isles of Sea and Sky is out May 22nd.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Nic Reuben
Amighty update for Dome Keeper, designed “to increase replayability and run variety way beyond what you’ve seen so far.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Launch timings for Homeworld 3, which is out in a matter of days. Days!
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Redfall had a platter of updates and DLC in the works including the long-awaited offline mode,IGN reports, before Microsoft shut down Arkane Austin.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Dishonored co-director Harvey Smith has continued his thread about Arkane Austin’s closure with some lengthy reflections about his time at the studio over the years.
Some notes on Arkane.What a place. It was 16 years for me. Some games I will always treasure. Very proud of the team and culture. No place is perfect, but we cared a lot and put in effort.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
CampFire Studio and Qooland’s survival game Soulmask - in which you can possess your tribespeople to make use of their skills - will release on June 18th.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Amusingly, the Sharpshooters added to Shadows of Doubt by the latest Sharpshooter Assassin update aren’t as sharp as they could be. They keep missing andleaving massive piles of shell casings everywhere. The devs are working on a fix, but I for one cherish the idea of a city’s worth of inept snipers.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
I’m fascinated bythis open-world delivery game that sounds like Death Stranding on a horse in 13th-century Mongolia, boasting “unparalleled equine realism”. Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori gallops onto early access in September!
–Matt Jarvis
In perhaps the most Fortnite story yet, the battle royale game has temporarily banned its new Yoda backpack foropening game-crashing wormholes while doing Futurama’s Zoidberg Scuttle.
–Matt Jarvis
As Edwin shared earlier,the next Battlefield game will have “connected” multiplayer and single-player offerings, made by the series’ biggest team yet, according to EA’s human-shaped corpobot Andrew Wilson.
–Matt Jarvis
Darkest Dungeon 2 should start rolling out its long-awaited mod support soon, with custom items by the end of June and whole new characters later on.
–Matt Jarvis
IT IS THURSDAY, MY RELIABLE DUDES HAVE INFORMED ME
–Nic Reuben
–Nic Reuben
Arrowhead’s CEO has suggested that the developers have “gone too far” with certain Helldivers 2 balancing patches and need a new approach. They’ve been “removing the fun”, the dogs!
Hey, yeah i think we’ve gone too far in some areas. Will talk to the team about the approach to balance. It feels like every time someone finds something fun, the fun is removed.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Nightingale hasa new updates roadmap. An offline mode is “incoming” alongside new quests and NPCs and “tree-felling improvements”. I was killed by a tree falling on me in Nightingale once. I hope that’s still possible - it was rather fun.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Nic Reuben
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Nic Reuben
–Nic Reuben
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
As reported byEurogamer, there’s trouble a-brewing down Elite Dangerous way with regard to a currently paywalled new ship that’s a bit too handy in combat.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
According to Xbox honcho Matt Booty viaThe Verge, Microsoft “need smaller games that give us prestige and awards”. This certainly describes Hi-Fi Rush, created by Tango Gameworks, which Microsoft shuttered this week.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
I’m still getting around to Total War: Pharaoh, because there is too much Warhammer to warhammer through, and here’s Creative Assembly talking aboutalmost doubling the size of the game’s world map in the next update.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
THE DUDES HAVE ONCE AGAIN CONSULTED THE ORACLE AND DECIDED THAT IT IS FRIDAY
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Here’sa new Harmony updatefor A Highland Song. It adds five new musical tracks, “story surprises” and a Landmark feature “which lets you see the peaks and paths you’ve discovered on your runs so far when scanning the landscape - and with a quick button press, lets you jump to the associated map”.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Role-playing musicalStray Godsis getting some DLC featuring the quite-dead bard Orpheus, developers Summerfall Studios have announced. You briefly meet Orpheus in the base game, but this new story will see you embody the bard for “hours of interactive music”.
–Brendan Caldwell
Possibly incomparable time travel story 1000xResist is out now.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Former Microsoft senior PR Brad Hilderbrand (who was laid off by the company this May) hasblogged on LinkedInabout plateauing Game Pass growth and Microsoft closing Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks and Alpha Dog Studios. A little excerpt: “The biggest paradox with Game Pass is that basically every game that launches on the service badly misses its sales goals.”
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Venerable zombie survival game DayZ is getting a Frostline expansion with the opportunity to “discover an untouched archipelago where time stands still.” The new Sakhal map is 83km square, and is said to be a lot tougher on the player than the existing areas. Here’s a trailer.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Here’s Xbox president Sarah Bond non-responding to a Bloomberg question about why they canned Tango, given the success of Hi-Fi Rush.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
In Emberstorm’s Reka you are a forest witch who lives in a chicken-legged house. Sound bewitching? You might want to trythe Steam demothen.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Nomad city-builder Dream Engineshas hit the big 1.0and people seem to like it.
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
–Nic Reuben
–Nic Reuben
Summerfall founder and former Dragon Age scribe David Gaider takes a dim view of an EA executive’s enthusiasm for generative AI tools.
In case it’s unclear, the “hunger” referred to here is the allure of a spreadsheet where the labour costs suddenly show as a teeny tiny bar compared to the other bars and a bunch of executives around a table nod and repeat “ROI” and “good, yes, good” over and over again.https://t.co/akAMhghTzR
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Fallout 4 is getting a new graphics and performance update next week, Bethesda have announced. No details as yet on what exactly it does, but it’s worrying news for any modders still scrambling to update their mods following the last big patch a couple of weeks ago.
On Monday, May 13 we will be updating Fallout 4 on all platforms.This update will include new options for graphics and performance settings as well as further fixes and improvements.Thanks for your continued feedback and support!
–Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Stellaris’ director has insisted “ethical use of AI is very important to us”after generating two voices for latest DLC expansion The Machine Age, as well as using AI artwork and text prompts for “inspiration” during its development.
–Matt Jarvis
Dead by Daylight appears to be teasing a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster as its next killer, ahead of an eight-year (!) anniversary stream laying out its upcoming chapter on May 14th.
–Matt Jarvis
The Rogue Prince of Persia, the series’ colourful roguelite 2D platformer from the current devs behind Dead Cells, hasdodged out of the way of Hades 2 by pushing its early access launch- originally due next week - later into the month. Expect news of a revised release date on Monday.
–Matt Jarvis
As Edwin mentioned earlier,Fallout 4 is already getting another patch next weekafter waiting years for the last “next-gen update”. Good luck to those modders out there already reeling with the most recent changes.
–Matt Jarvis
Warner Bros. have seemingly about-faced when it comes to delisting all Adult Swim Games from Steam. Instead, they’ve contacteda handful of developers about transferring control of Steam pages to them.
–Graham Smith
Ghosts Of Tsushima Director’s Cut isno longer available for sale on Steam in nearly 180 countries, due to it requiring players to have a PSN account to access certain online features. PSN accounts are not accessible in these countries. Players who pre-ordered the game on Steam in these regions have reported that they have been auto-refunded. The samurai action-adventure is due to release this coming Thursday, May 16th.
–Graham Smith
Instruments Of Destruction hashit 1.0 and left Early Access. It’s a physics sandbox demolition sim and developed in part by one of the tech designers on Red Faction Guerilla, a classic of knocking down buildings.
–Graham Smith
Game Developer report thatSteam has been banned in Vietnam.
–Graham Smith
