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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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".
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.
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.
No siree. We are not trying to fight those big bosses. It's arguably a bit of a weird thing for a publisher with Diablo and World of Warcraft in their arsenal to say, but that's the stance Blizzard are sticking to with their storefront Battle.net, even though it now boasts two big CD Projekt Red RPGs. Instead of an unknowably girthy hoard of games, the publishers say Battle.net's still designed to feel like a handpicked basket of things to play.
Another sad one today, unfortunately. Back in July, Polyarc released Moss: The Forgotten Relic, a new version of the original two games combined together that ditched its VR headset origins. Now, unfortunately, it sounds like the studio is shutting down, as the developer's LinkedIn page shared a message this week noting it's ending "active development."
Today, we are anticipating the arrival of Nick, Sarah and their two children for an overnight stay. Unfortunately, Mary will be departing us and we will see her in October when we return home to Weymouth. The day started as expected with Mary and Sonia taking Obi for his poo walk, with a little ball-throwing in a local park. After I tidied up and got dressed, we walked over to the local Nero…
Just over a month on from a consortium led by the Saudi Arabian government's Public Investment Fund taking over EA, in a buyout worth $55 billion, said new owners are reportedly considering merging the publishers with their existing gaming firm Savvy Games Group. The result would be an ubermegacorp to serve as a vehicle for all of the Saudi wealth fund's future video game-related biz.
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.
"You're not the last Belmont anymore", Trevor reminds his daughter Rose, as they gently sail into a Paris ablaze and ripped apart by monsters. Rose knows it well, as do indie developers Evil Empire. Following their success with roguelike Dead Cells (and its own Castlevania DLC), Konami gave them the keys to Dracula's kingdom, trusting the French team to bring the series back to life after a ten year slumber. It's a heavy holy cross to bear, but Castlevania: Belmont's Curse holds it up confidently.
Today, my job was to find out why our inverter had stopped working, so after Obi’s poo walk, Sonia and Mary went to Nero for a coffee – Mary very kindly brought a coffee and bacon roll back for me. So with the engine bay open and the multimeter in hand, I checked the power supply from the batteries – to make sure the massive 250A fuse had not blown, though I’m sure the neighbourhood would…
No Man's Sky is a decade old. Let that sink in. No, seriously, you'll need plenty of water to survive the trips that the massive space game's 10th anniversary update allows you to embark on. It's now possible to get up close and personal with the stars that serve as suns in each system. Or, if the risk of fiery death's not your cup of tea, you can establish a new home by taking over as director of a space station or building an orbital base that floats among the stars.
Touhou Project is Schrödinger’s shoot-em-up series: simultaneously a decades-running, 20-game strong (not counting spinoffs) multimedia juggernaut spawning one of the most active fan communities of the post-Trekkie age, and also some weeb curiosity that no-one I’ve ever spoken to has ever heard of. Either way, it’s been around for yonks, and has just seen the launch of its first official remake, of foundational 2002 entry Touhou Koumakyou: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
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