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.

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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.

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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."

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The King Is Watching developers Hypnohead have announced The Crab Is Walking, a roguelite city-builder in which you alternate between arranging tetromino-shaped city districts on the back of a colossal crustacean, and sending out armies of Mad Maxalots to slaughter wasteland insects. Unlike in The King Is Watching, you do not have to actively train your gaze on your crab metropolis to stop it slacking off.

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Well, that report earlier this year was bang on the banana. A new StarCraft shooter, creatively dubbed StarCraft, has been announced for a 2030 release at this year's BlizzCon. Joining it among the headliners were Diablo 5 - which is due out in 2029 - and a new World of Warcraft branch dubbed WOW: Forever. Brave of them to name a Warcraft fork after the inevitable response which follows a WOW player revealing how long they've been playing the MMO.

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The beautiful thing about people that like dungeon crawlers is that they're all sickos. Every single one of them! This is not a genre that's for the faint of heart. It is often plodding and methodical and conniving, so focused on stats and character classes that you could drown in the amount of numbers you have to pay attention to. So, how about a dungeon crawler where the battling happens automatically, and all you have to do is a little bit of programming? It's called Dungeon Automata, and trust me, the programming isn't as bad as it sounds.

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There are probably many jokes one could make about mushrooms being edible, and mushrooms being like, edible, man in relation to Shroom and Gloom, a positively mycelial roguelike deckbuilder where you roam spore-filled dungeons with two decks of cards in tow. I won't do that though because that would mean having to think of them, and like Edwin before me, I just don't have it in me. What I do have is the ability to tell you about Shroom and Gloom, which is out in early access today.

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The nasal greenhorn strategy gamer understands "strategy" to be about mastery of space by means of clanging offensives, shining shieldwalls, and brute attrition, but the true Napoleon of Drag-Select knows that strategy is always, primarily, the mastery of time. I don't think Napoleon would have approved of Ex Sanguis. He would not have liked all the willowy clone women made out of congealed blood and pincers. He would have suspected them of being divorcees and Babouvists. But perhaps he would have appreciated the game's fixation with seizing the initiative.

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Update: Ubisoft have confirmed the Steam announcement post about them starting to test a new Ubisoft Connect Services Steam tool is genuine, and they've now stuck it in Prince of Persia The Lost Crown's regular Steam news feed so everyone can have a read.

Original story follows:

Ubisoft are planning to start testing a new tool that'll allow Prince of Persia The Lost Crown Steam players to access features only usually available via the publishers' Connect launcher without actually having to have said launcher installed. That's according to a Steam announcement post which only appears to be visible to folks who already own a copy of The Lost Crown on Valve's storefront.

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I remember once when I was a child, my uncle was visiting and completely unprompted (and kindly) he gave me a copy of one of the Total War games, I think the Rome one, you'll have to forgive my memory. I'd literally never played a strategy game in my life, but I gave it a go anyway, and quickly found myself thinking, "hey, where are the collectibles? Why's there no triple jump?" The onboarding process did not help me much, and after a failure of a battle where I lost everything, I soon gave up after. So it's because of not particularly strategic people like me that makes me understand why developer Creative Assembly want Total War: Warhammer 40,000 "approachable and accessible".

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Truth be told, I'm still not sold on "bullet heaven" as a genre. Name notwithstanding, the genre is certainly here to stay, and there always seems to be funny new takes on it despite the fact that Vampire Survivors did kind of start it off without much room for improvement. While I'm not sure if Wanderburg is an improvement (I haven't played it yet), I do conceptually like its approach being to hand you a modular medieval castle tank that can suck up sheep and blast cannon fire at your enemies. And it's out today in early access!

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I find it to be quite rare that when a game says it has a graphic novel art style that it actually has one. There's often just something that reads as slightly off, like it's not quite cut from the same cloth. I'm happy to say that isn't the case with Stack Order, a deckbuilding roguelike with a story all about layering your cards just right to maximise their effects that looks like you could find it in a hip and trendy French comic book shop.

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Terrible news, folks, it's time for another episode of "Edwin secretly watches a lot of anime and has bad anime opinions". Although I don't know how anybody could reasonably disagree with my affection for The Apothecary Diaries. It's kind of a Sherlock Holmes story, if Sherlock Holmes were a young female alchemist in a world broadly inspired by Tang Dynasty-era China.

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Being a vampire is a pretty raw deal... or so the vamps inform us when they are not having freaky gothic sex, shapeshifting into wolves, enjoying the slimming effects of a uniquely low-carb diet, or enduring through marvellous future epochs we foolish cattle can only dream of.

I find most stories about vampirism tend to do a poor job of convincing me that vampirism is to be avoided. "Immortality is no gift, but a curse," breathe the bloodsuckers, like parents telling kids that staying up late only makes you tired in the morning, and I think: OK, so you're definitely going to outlive everybody you've ever loved, but also, 1) you've got marble hard abs, and 2) you're going to be knocking around when generations to come finally put a stake through capitalism and roll out UBI.

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Unionised Blizzard workers have voted to ratify a new contract with their employer that will "require" Blizzard to negotiate with workers over any usage of generative AI tools in their workplace, in addition to giving laid-off workers the right to be "recalled" into open positions across Blizzard for 14 months after the date of their layoff announcement.

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Look, I know it's way to early to be talking about sequels to The Blood of Dawnwalker, given Rebel Wolves' vampire RPG hasn't even been out a week as I write this. However, the game's devs are already putting pieces in place to get on with making such a game, so with help from strong spoiler tags, I'm doing it.

THIS IS A VERY STRONG SPOILER WARNING FOR THE BLOOD OF DAWNWALKER, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

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From Software and Bandai Namco have released a hasty new Elden Ring patch to stop people getting their hands on items from the game's Tarnished Pack DLC for free.

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Coen, the half-man and half-vampire protagonist of The Blood of Dawnwalker, doesn’t like chomping down on rats.

I know this because he’s told me multiple times, after I’ve made him slurpily drain a rodent like it’s a furry Frube (other brands of tubed yoghurt are available). Sometimes he shudders a bit and makes noises of disgust. Other times he straight up says things like "This is not a nice thing to do". I know it’s not, farmboy whose family needs saving, but what’s the alternative?

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Witcher-flavoured vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker has received its first post-launch patch, with developers Rebel Wolves dipping their fangs into a modest neckful of problems with blocked quest progression and general controller behaviour on PC. They've also taught a blacksmith a new recipe. Alas, the devs are still working on fixes for those problems with stuttering, PlayStation button-mapping, and shader compilation we covered last night. Still, at least little Lunka will no longer get hopelessly lost while walking you through the tutorial.

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