LoginWhat are we all playing this weekend?
It's well and truly not summer now. I'm writing this with the lights on because the screen's backlight is suddenly too bright for these eyes grown weak and lazy by the abundance of natural illumination.
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Roman Sands RE:Build review: A unique and obliterating blend of resort sim, engineering horror and alchemic ritual
I completed Roman Sands RE:Build late last night, and haven't had nearly enough time to digest it, but I'm keen to help get the word out and energise whatever algorithmic chicanery might contribute to this gorgeous, ugly thing making money. So! Roman Sands RE:Build is two exquisitely grim games locked in a collapsing binary orbit. You should play it, preferably before reading the rest of this review, which is only going to spoil and dilute its squalid magic.
Control Resonant review: A superbly strange action-RPG that'll make you feel tiny and godly at once
Control Resonant, much like the inside-out, interdimensional cryptids it has you bashing with a shapeshifting stick, probably shouldn’t exist. At least not in the risk-averse, pennypinching reality that sometimes seems to have enveloped the art of gamesmaking, and that may have installed some scepticism into my own head. The sequel to a liked yet slow-selling shooter, which replaces both the original’s player character and its instantly recognisable, bureauca-brutalist setting, while violently pirouetting into open-world RPG melee brawling. Five words that Remedy, in all their thirty years of existence, have never previously let pass their lips.
Baldur's Gate 3 Act Two Expansion mod, out now in beta, adds a whole new region to explore after dealing with the Shadow Curse
An ambitious Baldur's Gate 3 custom campaign mod which adds a whole new region to explore between the RPG's second and third acts is finally out in beta. This extra adventure midway through BG3's main quest is the result of nearly two years of work from modder SquallyDaBeanz, who's put together a trip to The Chionthar Wilds full of new missions and dungeons.
"Publishers are afraid of certain parts of the world": Saber Interactive's message to North American studios is to get their head out of their own geography
Layoffs have been a constant drumbeat in gaming industry news since 2022. Even if the cadence of layoffs seems to have slowed in 2026, the severity of those cuts has not lessened. In July, Microsoft made 1600 staff redundant as part of its great reset, and promised investors they would let 1600 more staff go in the next 12 months.
Cuts like those and the ongoing economic pressures plaguing the industry – rising debt rates, a cost of living crisis, and a memory shortage that is making every aspect of making and playing video games pricier – should have the head of any large studio examining their plans for the future. Especially when games are taking longer to make, costing more to make, and up against a much greater volume of competition than even two years ago.
With all that in mind, when I wasn't talking to Saber Interactive's chief creative officer Tim Willits about generative AI, I wanted to know what he would do if he ran one of those 200-people big-budget game studios. Because say what you like about Saber (and there's a lot of things people like to say about Saber), but the developer is doing well at a time when a lot of other studios and publishers are struggling.
"Nearly everyone" laid off at Hyper Light Drifter devs Heart Machine after publisher drops unannounced game
Heart Machine, the US-based makers of Hyper Light Drifter, its multiplayer spinoff Hyper Light Breaker, and last year’s Possessor(s), have laid off "nearly everyone" on staff after an unnamed publisher pulled funding for their next, unannounced game.
Escape a roundabout as a stoned tuk-tuk driver in Zero Parades' free Director’s Cut update, which will add about 40,000 new words to the RPG next month
As many reservations as I had going into ZA/UM's Zero Parades: For Dead Spies earlier this year, what with all of the drama and upset that's surrounded the studio since Disco Elysium's release, it pleasantly surprised me. I don't think I rate it more highly than its brilliant predecessor, but it offered a throughly fun time that felt like it was riding the coattails of Disco, but not in a way that left it any way unable to create its own magic.
Now, it's getting a free Director's Cut update to coincide with its console release, with a bunch of new additions and tweaks coming to the PC version.
Twitch CEO expects GTA 6 online multiplayer will launch next year, which if accurate would leave only the PC port's arrival point up in the air
Despite Rockstar Games' silence on the matter, the cat rather seems to be out of the bag about GTA 6 getting its own online component that'll doubtless serve as GTA Online has for GTA 5. Court docs the studio themselves filed as part of the ongoing final hearing in a legal battle over the firings of 34 developers last year are partly to thank, but now so is the boss of streaming platform Twitch just blurting out when he expects GTA 6 to get a big multiplayer bump.
Three different 4X strategy games, three different solutions to "that inherent problem" of disappearing exploration
There is an issue in 4X games. In fact, it's so persistent, that Amplitude Studios' co-founder and CEO Romain de Waubert de Genlis describes it as an "inherent problem", one his team have been attempting to solve since the first Endless Legend released back in 2014.
"One of the X's, 'explore', disappears after a while," de Waubert de Genlis explains. You've discovered the map for one thing, so there is no more world to uncover. But 'explore' can also refer to something more abstract, your strategy becomes fixed. Because you can see the lands, and you can see the resources, and you can see the enemies you face, you must decide on a course of action and there will rarely be much reason to change it.
But spotting the problematic 'X' is far simpler than fixing it.
"If the player trusts you enough, they are not going to savescum": Why the makers of some of the best RPGs on PC want you to get used to failing
When it comes to RPGs, I am an irredeemable savescummer. I admit it. I'll slam F9 at the drop of a hat (perhaps the hat was dropped as a result of a failed dexterity roll. Unacceptable. Reload).
So when I recently found myself reloading a Divinity 2 save for the umpteenth time in a single session, I started to wonder - in a genre that's supposedly about storytelling first and foremost, why am I viewing botched persuasion checks as something to be studiously avoided? And why is it that I feel totally different about making a horrible mess of things in tabletop roleplaying games?
After all, some of my fondest memories of real-life roleplaying are moments of extravagant failure: sometimes of the bathetic stepping-on-a-rake-instead-of-slaying-the-necromancer variety, and sometimes of the much more grounded, human, and affecting type.
It all got me thinking: how do RPG developers think about player failure? Would they recognise the distinction between digital and tabletop that I'm describing? And can they convince a savescummer like me to renounce my ways?
"We will not force it": The Blood of Dawnwalker's sequel might drop the timer mechanics, says director, but I hope they stick around
If you've given The Blood of Dawnwalker a go, odds are you've got thoughts about the 30-day and 3-night timer it applies to Coen's quest to save his family from fate most vampy. Devs Rebel Wolves are very much aware of how divisive the feature's proven, and now the game's director's made clear that it's not guaranteed to return in future entries unless it can be made to mesh with the story being told.
Guild Wars 3 dev wants you to be able to take a break for months at a time and know you're "not going to be left behind"
Colin Johanson doesn't think the MMO is dying. He would say that: he's the studio head of Arenanet, the team behind the Guild Wars series. He's also talking to me directly after showing off combat and movement in the team's next MMO, Guild Wars 3. That said, what is more unexpected is that he says the genre is "as big as it's ever been."
You just need to expand your definition of an MMO.
Helldivers 2 and Horizon Forbidden West delisted from Steam in the UK, Sony say they're "working with Valve to address the issue"
Helldivers 2 and Horizon Forbidden West have disappeared from the Steam store in the UK, something that's happened rather out of nowhere and looks like it might've even taken publishers PlayStation by surprise. Said publishers have issued a statement noting that they've already reached out to Valve to get the games back up.
"15 years ago, people understood it was an unfinished game": As Endless Legend 2 hits 1.0, Amplitude reflect on how early access has changed
Amplitude have always used early access for their games, even before Steam Early Access was a thing. Ahead of Endless Space's release in July 2012, players who preordered the game got immediate access to an alpha build that was steadily patched and updated on the lead up to launch.
To this day, the studio still uses its Games2Gether program, where they discuss design issues with players and poll them for thoughts on how to proceed. Right now, there are a small group of players giving feedback on the recently announced Humankind 2.
However, as Amplitude prepare to launch Endless Legend 2 after a year in early access, co-founder and CEO Romain de Waubert de Genlis readily admits "The whole thing has changed over time."
MindsEye studio Build A Rocket Boy appear to be making fresh redundancies, as one staffer says he's "helping wrap things up here in the HR department"
Update: The IWGB Games Worker Union have issued the following statement to RPS from vice-chair Ben Newbon:
We cannot add any further insight into the heartbreaking job losses at BARB, a company that we think has been slowly spiralling for a long time.
We came together to fight tooth and nail to prevent the hardworking people working there from such a fate after pouring their heart and soul into Minds Eye. We are proud of what we built there but still hearing of redundancies is always an injustice.
We offer nothing but solidarity and support to everyone impacted by any job losses and remain committed to getting justice for BARB management’s treatment of workers and organising to root these practices out of the video games industry. Only by joining and becoming active in a trade union can we achieve these goals.
Original story follows:
Build a Rocket Boy (BARB), makers of panned futuristic action game/massive minigame platform MindsEye, appear to be making more staff redundant or able to seek other work. As part of a LinkedIn post indicating he's seeking opportunities elsewhere, a principal talent acquisition partner at the studio has written that he "will be seeing BARB through till the very end, helping wrap things up here in the HR department", which doesn't exactly paint a rosy picture of the company's future.
"A dried husk of a product": former Doom producer berates Microsoft for making Halo a "mid-tier" game and mourns the "financialisation" of AAA
Former Doom: The Dark Ages producer Andrew Willis has shared tuppence on the state of the blockbuster videogame trade, arguing that the biggest companies and most popular series are going through a familiar "cycle" whereby the moneyfolk finally displace the creatives, and start messing games up in the name of short-term returns. He reckons that the likes of Halo are well on their way to becoming "a dried husk of a product that everyone just now associates with like, slop".
"They often don’t make it in the door": Wardogs studio Bulkhead check for "anti-crunch messaging" on prospective hires' social media, CEO says
Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer has revealed that the studio behind recent FPS hit Wardogs check the social media accounts of prospective hires for public criticism of crunch practices, and deliberately prefer to avoid bringing such folks on board. In the exec's view, devs working extra or long hours to get a game or update out of the door - otherwise known as crunch - "is going to happen at some point", even if the studio "always try and avoid it".
Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember has a demo out, as Koei Tecmo carve an early 2027 release date into some hulking demons from Chinese mythology
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty sequel Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember will release in March next year, devs Koei Tecmo have revealed as they've whipped out an alpha demo that you can give a go right away. Expect plenty of samurai sword slashing and rolling around the mythological or historical Chinese big man, plus some open battlefields to roam.
Skyblivion's release is "getting closer" as the massive Skyrim mod's makers start recruiting for a big final marketing push
Skyblivion, that massive Oblivion remake mod which was originally set to release last year, finally seems to be on the verge of arrival. While they've still yet to put a full release date on it, the mod's creators have announced that they're looking for voluteers to join their comms team and contribute to a final push to get the word out about their creation.
