Why is every difficult action game a ‘Souls-like’ now? Dark Souls is an excellent game that many games since have been inspired by, I’m glad we agree, but this is out of control. Especially in the past few months, the Souls-like label has been bandied about so erratically that it’s now meaningless at best and counterintuitive at worst. 

Look at what happened with Code Vein. Bandai Namco hyped up a mysterious new project with a vaguely vampiric trailer bearing the tagline ‘Prepare to Dine’, obviously cribbing from the Souls mantra ‘Prepare to Die.’ The publisher stopped just short of writing “It’s like Dark Souls” in the sky, and their teasing came on the heels of From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki confirming there would be no more Souls games, so Souls fans were curious. 

But when the curtain fell and Code Vein was revealed to be a distinctly anime action RPG styled after God Eater, all those curious Souls fans scattered like royal rats. The Souls name comes with certain expectations.

Those expectations caused Code Vein’s marketing to work against it. If Bandai had opened with ‘anime action RPG,’ the reveal probably would have been better received. But because many players went in expecting Dark Souls, many were disappointed. We see the same thing happen when wildly different games are lumped together as Souls-likes: games are mislabeled and players are misled.

An unfair comparison 

Ska Studios’ Salt and Sanctuary was trumpeted by many as a 2D take on Dark Souls, and not without reason. Enemies yield salt instead of souls, checkpoints are sanctuaries instead of bonfires and there are definitely some familiar bosses. These traits unabashedly ape Dark Souls, but I’d still describe Salt and Sanctuary as a 2D action RPG before calling it a Souls-like. If I had to make a direct comparison, it would be to The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, Ska’s previous 2D action RPG. 

Look at Dragon’s Dogma, which had the misfortune of releasing just months after Dark Souls and is still called a Souls-like even today. It, too, is an open-world action RPG featuring giant bosses and combat couched in stamina management. But it also has far more prominent RPG traits, such as sophisticated class and companion systems, and it lacks the atmosphere and challenge that makes Dark Souls what it is. And to be fair, Dark Souls lacks the ability to latch onto the nether regions of a griffin. 

Comparing every action game under the sun to Dark Souls not only ignores what makes them unique, it also sets them up for failure. Dark Souls is a poor and arbitrary acid test, and the Souls-like label creates unrealistic standards that threaten to bury great games. Salt and Sanctuary is a great 2D action RPG. Dragon’s Dogma is a great open-world action RPG. But as Souls games, they’re pretty terrible, probably because they're not Souls games. 

A meaningless label  

These examples also illustrate how unspecific Souls-like has become. Which is what always happens when we invent labels instead of simply describing games using established, straightforward terms. Labels like Metroidvania and rogue-like are also misnomers for games inspired in some part by Castlevania, Metroid, and Rouge, and like Souls-like, their definitions are muddy. They’re treated like genres when they’re really just confused, insular sets of characteristics that conflate design sensibilities in place of accurate, detailed descriptions. 

This is partly because these labels operate on presumed knowledge. Imagine you’ve never played Dark Souls—and plenty of people haven’t. What does Souls-like tell you about a game? Even if you know Dark Souls by reputation, you’ll miss the bulk of the message and probably have more questions. 

But then, even if you are intimately familiar with Dark Souls, Souls-like still doesn’t tell you anything because it lacks a universal definition. Salt and Sanctuary, Dragon’s Dogma, Dead Cells, The Surge, Titan Souls, Code Vein, Sundered, Furi, Hyper Light Drifter, Lords of the Fallen, Necropolis, Ashen, Nioh, Hollow Knight—these games offer an absurd range of experiences, yet all of them and more have been called Souls-likes. 

Games writers are especially guilty of this, and not just in this one instance. We come up with and lean on this kind of jargon all the time. It’s dangerously easy to do. Watch, I’ll invent a stupid genre right now and it will be every bit as credible as Souls-like. All right, I’ve got one.

Big-headed-children-likes. Big-headed-children-likes are about getting big-headed children and childlike characters from one place to another, often (but not exclusively) by moving from left to right in a big, scary world. Noteworthy big-headed-children-likes include Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Limbo, Bastion, Inside, Child of Light, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, Little Nightmares, Cave Story, Hollow Knight, Poncho, Rogue Legacy, Rain World, The Binding of Isaac and Fez. 

Do you see how silly that sounds? The Binding of Isaac is nothing like Limbo. Fez is nothing like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Obviously. Even so, according to this definition, which is at once narrow-minded and overbroad, they’re all the same type of game. Souls-like is no different. These labels blindly hone in on a  few specific traits, and consequently clump way too many different games together.

A better alternative 

Calling games Souls-likes helps no one, so I guess we’re just going to have to properly describe them. Let’s pick on Dead Cells, whose Steam description calls it “a rogue-lite Metroidvania action-platformer” featuring “2D Souls-lite combat.” Whew, boy. How can we relay that to someone who knows next to nothing about games? Someone from a far-off timeline devoid of cockamamy, wannabe genres? We’d probably say something like this: Dead Cells is a difficult 2D action game about collecting loot and exploring a dungeon wherein enemies and rooms change every time you die.

Let’s do Titan Souls next. Titan Souls is an isometric action game filled with bosses that play out as puzzles which must be solved using only a bow and a single arrow. Oh, talk descriptive to me. Let’s do Hyper Light Drifter: an isometric action RPG that, despite challenging combat and inventive bosses, is centrally about exploring a gorgeous pixel art world. 

Hell, let’s take it one step further. How would we describe Dark Souls to someone who knows nothing about the series? We can’t very well call it a Souls-like, now can we? How about this: Dark Souls is an incredibly challenging open-world action RPG with carefully paced melee combat, smartly interwoven environments and hands-off storytelling which belies incredibly deep world building.

Even with that much explaining, it feels lacking somehow. Where’s the asynchronous multiplayer? The Gothic themes? The eclectic characters? The crushing existential dread and the contrasting moments of triumph? A paragraph still can't do the work,but Souls-like doesn't even try.

Of course, Dark Souls didn’t come up with all these ideas on its own, but it handled them so well and with such flourish that it’s become emblematic of them. More than that, it set the world on fire precisely because it wasn’t chasing arbitrary genre conventions. This might explain why the Souls-like label exploded the way it did, but it also highlights the pointlessness of it. You can copy the systems, the terminology, the high difficulty, the UI, but you can’t copy the impact. 

That unmistakable Dark Souls feel has never been truly replicated, not even by its direct sequels. So when we call games Souls-likes, we’re not just misleading players. We’re not just mislabeling games. We’re wasting time. 

Dead Cells, the excellent rogue-like Metroidvania, now has a daily challenge mode that you can replay as many times as you want to compete for a spot on the leaderboards.

Daily Run gives everyone the same level and loot, and is already alive and kicking: apparent hardware enthusiast GTX1080ti_Prime is top of the pile. Your ranking is based on the score you achieve rather than the time taken for your run, and there's a separate leaderboard for first runs only.

You only get access to the mode once you've reached a certain milestone in the game (developer Motion Twin isn't saying more than that), and you can only use items you have unlocked in the base game.

The mode was added in an update released for the early access game on Thursday alongside a new ability that lets players sell unwanted items lying on the ground and a speed boost that makes you run faster if you kill multiple enemies in a short space of time.

Also, gold has been rebalanced so that instead of keeping a certain percentage when you die (permanently) you just keep a maximum amount. It's one of the player suggestions that have been added to the game—other brainchildren of the community have been flagged in the patch notes too, which I like. It means that players know their feedback is directly influencing the game in tangible ways.

There's a host of other smaller changes, including a new Items Altar that asks players to choose between two gizmos, plus weapon balances and bug fixes.

If you haven't yet played Dead Cells and you're a fan of Spelunky and its ilk then it's worth checking out. It's got a headless protagonist and snappy combat, and Shaun enjoyed what he played of a previous version back in May.

It's £13.99/$16.99 on Steam.

Children of Morta, a "narrative-driven hack-and-slash roguelike" about the Bergson family, was announced in 2014 and then successfully Kickstarted in 2015. And today, developer Dead Mage announced that it should be ready for release sometime in the first half of 2018, and more importantly put out a new gameplay trailer revealing the progress that's been made over the past couple of years. 

The pixel art graphics looks fantastic, but it's the promise of "a powerful narrative of familial ties" about a family that's guarded Mount Morta for generations that really grabs my attention. Six different family members will be available for the fight, each with their own unique playstyles, personalities, and quests, while the world of Morta itself will be filled with its own mysteries and lore to uncover. 

"Experience what it means to be in a family of heroes. Take part in their journey, their struggles, and their victories," the description on Steam states. "Witness a love for each other unmatched by even the gods themselves. Fight through hordes of monsters unimaginable as you explore a mountain constantly in flux. Gorgeous and breathtaking procedurally generated dungeons guarantee a unique experience every time you leave the safety of the Bergson’s house in pursuit of the truth behind the Corruption." 

That doesn't sound like your usual hack-and-slash romp, and I really hope it lives up to all that it promises. Children of Morta doesn't have a solid launch date yet, but you can find out more on Steam or at childrenofmorta.com. 

Last month, Darkwood developer Acid Wizard Studio released out a live-action trailer to announce that the top-down survival-horror game would finally be released on August 17. Joe said at the time that live-action promos for videogames don't really turn his crank, and I agree—but the new trailer released to mark the game's launch is pure gameplay, and it looks fantastic. 

On the surface, Darkwood sounds like a fairly straightforward survival-horror experience. By day, you'll scavenge the open-world forest for materials and supplies, and at night you'll need to hide away from "the horrors that lurk in the dark." But it's the promise of something more sinister underneath it all that really appeals: Making decisions that impact the world and inhabitants of Darkwood, while trying to come to grips with its mysteries. 

The top-down gameplay in the trailer isn't frightening in the way that first-person games typically are—the developers make a point of describing it as "survival horror without jump scares"—but it's undeniably creepy. The lighting is great, and the audio is used to tremendous effect to help drive the trailer to its crescendo. And it's so damn weird—A "wolfman" isn't the most exotic creature ever to appear in a videogame, but one dressed in a hoodie and heavy jacket, with an AK slung over his shoulder? That, you don't see every day. 

Darkwood is available on Steam and GOG for ten percent off its regular $15/£12/€14 price until August 24.  

I've been tooling around No Man's Sky a bit since the last update, mostly aimless exploration, jumping from solar system to solar system and landing to harvest enough plants and rocks to jump to more. I've been low on Thamium9, the gunk used with antimatter to craft warp cells, which I can never seem to find a sizable supply of. Thamium9 appears in scattered plants in small amounts that need to be hand-picked, and also in certain asteroids, but I always seem to be fresh out. The wiki informs me a good place to look is on barren planets, so I've been keeping an eye out for one.

While scanning a gray, distant planet called Elfannovi Umvel, which is described as an airless planet, I realize I can faintly make out what looks like a series of hexagons covering its surface. If it weren't for the sunlight glinting off the hexes, I may not have even noticed.

I jump toward it and the closer I get the better I can see this this isn't just a typical planet (well, each planet is procedurally generated, so technically they're each unique and thus not typical, but you get what I'm saying.) I've found one of No Man's Sky's new biomes. The big hexes give way to smaller and smaller ones as I approach and enter its atmosphere. It kind of looks like the planet is covered in solar panels.

Landing and wandering around, I don't see any signs of activity beyond the usual sentinels slowly hovering around performing their lonely duty of stopping players from quickly gathering rocks so they can get back to having fun. The synthetic plants, when scanned, are categorized as flora, and there are occasionally some hovering, slowly spinning hexes made of iron that can be harvested as well (there are also a few standard alien plants here and there). 

One thing of note is that scanning the synthetic plants and hexes doesn't pay you credits the way scanning organic plants and creatures does. I'm not sure if that's an interesting detail or just a bug. I'm feeling positive today so I'm going to go with interesting.

Flying over the planet's surface, my scanner picks up absolutely nothing for long minutes, and I don't see the usual dusting of outposts, crashed ships, language stones, monoliths, or anything else that requires investigation. Eventually, though, after landing to take a walk, I spot something in the distance. It's a structure, a large and metallic slowly spinning circle.

It turns out to be a terminal, which when activated, gives me a drizzling of text. After taking off again, I begin finding these terminals all over the planet. Most don't show up in scans, but having found the first one they become easy to spot.

They appear, for the most part, to be an AI that has been busy pondering various scenarios, and much of the text sounds like wargame simulations (one describes a hypothetical conflict between the Gek and Vy'keen). Sometimes the text has something to do with me (or you), the traveler, and some are musings about Atlas, life, and death. The planet, or whatever this is, appears to have had a lot of time to think.

One mystery, perhaps the most important one, I solved myself: yes, you can fly your ship through the rings. They don't transport you anywhere, but flying a spaceship through a big metal alien ring is still cool and if I had my own spaceship I would definitely do it as often as I could.

Another thing I discovered: at one point I landed near a terminal and found it was located next to a small cave. The cave's interior didn't appear synthetic at all: it was rocky with 'tites and 'mites and the usual procedurally generated clumps of alien plant life. So, it appears this planet isn't entirely artificial at all, but just covered by a layer of synthetic hexes.

I spent a couple hours just zooming around the planet, looking for more clues about what any of this means, and found probably a dozen or so terminals, always accompanied by vague text briefings, save beacons, and loot crates, but that's about it. I'm a little disappointed there weren't artificial creatures on the planet as well: some of those alien tigers with deer legs and cow heads and bird wings, only constructed from cables and solar panels, might have been cool to find. If you've found anything interesting on a hex planet, I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Spintires is one of those games that you either really dig, or completely don't. It's about driving big, Soviet-era trucks through thick, Soviet-era mud—not racing or in pursuit of any grand quest, but just grinding through it however you can. Despite its obviously (very) niche appeal it was quite a success, but a fallout between the developer and publisher led to controversy, and even a temporary removal from Steam. 

That was all eventually smoothed over, and the game is now back on Steam. Not only that, but a new version called Spintires: Mudrunner is on the way as well. The "ultimate version" of Spintires will feature a "total graphical overhaul," a new sandbox map alongside the five environments in the original game, a challenge mode with nine dedicated maps, and 13 new vehicles, taking the total to 19. And happily, development is once again being headed up by Pavel Zagrebelny, the creator of the original game. 

So the core game sounds essentially unchanged, but that's not necessarily a bad approach to take. Spintires isn't the sort of game that's ever going to become a mainstream hit, but it's held onto its audience remarkably well: Its average concurrent user count in July 2014 was 1,239, and its average concurrent user count last month—July 2017—was 1,124.   

Spintires: Mudrunner is available for pre-purchase now on Steam for ten percent off its regular $30/£25/€30 price, with another 50 percent off for owners of the original. It's expected to be ready for release in October. 

Games are very good at satisfying fantasy violence and elaborate, gory executions are commonplace. These animations are partly there to shock and illicit that wincing "oof" when you watch your character dismember some unfortunate guard, but they are also there to make your moments of victory in a combat encounter stand out from the rest of the melee. A satisfying, decisive takedown is a release valve that gives you a moment to regroup before the fight resumes.

They are also useful for establishing character. Fight choreography can be used to say a lot about your avatar's mindset. Jackie in the Darkness 2 is sadistic, and worryingly inventive with his demon arms, as though he has spent far too much time thinking about how to use them. In Shadow of Mordor, Talion is quick and decisive with his deathblows—the technique of a warrior used to fighting many enemies at once. Agent 47 is efficient and wastes no energy on flair, as you would expect from a seasoned professional.

We started discussing memorable melee attack and takedowns that work particularly well in the context of the game world in which they feature. Violence in games rarely analysed. It is discussed in terms of 'is this bad?' rather than 'how did they make this so satisfying?' Here is a collection of games that do it well. Warning: if you don't want to see lots of pretend polygonal NPCs get beaten up, shot, and stabbed (a lot) look away now.

Kicking guards in Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic delighted in the Source engine's ragdoll physics systems, and integrated them into its combat system with the excellent kick move. Booted foes fly through the air, taking out destructible terrain and getting stuck on spikes. Might & Magic's levels find many contrived ways for you to finish fights using this signature melee attack. Those spiky panels are everywhere.

Hammer takedowns in Hitman: Blood Money

Hitman is, of course, all about killing people in horrible ways, but there is something especially mean about the hammer attack in Hitman: Blood Money. Perhaps its the directness of the attack, combined with the use of such an ordinary everyday tool, that makes it so effective. Agent 47's animations all express a psychopathic nonchalance that well befits a contract killer.

Video via Ubermants.

Transhuman takedowns in Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Jensen's melee attacks demand so much energy that you might not see all of his takedown animations. They are remarkably elaborate and inventive. The developers had to create a fighting style for a guy who can shoot blades out of his wrists and elbows—a futuristic martial art. Some of the moves are comedic—the double headbutt is great—but the one where Jensen unhinges his hand and spins it to throw his enemy is so crazy and alien it sells Jensen as the terrifying futuristic commando he's supposed to be.

Video via HomiesOfMars.

Teamwork takedowns in Batman: Arkham Knight

There is an outstanding level in Arkham Knight when Batman teams up with Robin to infiltrate a hideout. You can switch between characters, order each other about and join forces to beat up the Joker's goons. The Arkham games use Batman's brutish takedown animations to sell his powerful, direct method of fighting. The co-op takedowns take this to another level, contrasting Batman and Robin's styles in moments of superheroic teamwork. The Arkham games use slow motion to create snapshot moments that look like living comic book panels.

Video via Shad Karim.

Everything Ezio does in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Every weapon type in Brotherhood has its own set of complex multi-foe takedowns that Ezio executes with dazzling, horrifying efficiency. The Assassin's Creed games always feature spectacular choreography but Brotherhood's takedowns are particularly elegant, often using aggressor's momentum and weapons against other enemies. Ezio is skilled, but he is only human, so Brotherhood's combat relies on technical martial prowess rather than absurd feats of strength (see Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the Batman Arkham games for that). There is obviously a lot of martial arts expertise on the development team, and the resulting takedowns really sell the idea of the assassin as a master of all weapons. 

Video via YouNicIce.

Knife assassinations in Dishonored 2

Violence is a form of catharsis in a revenge fantasy, and Dishonored 2's gory knife finishers are a grisly vector for Corvo and Emily's fury. Dishonored's art style produces guards with of an almost caricature appearance. Their features are exaggerated and they are unusually expressive. This, combined with the close first-person perspective, makes these executions uncomfortably intimate. They are pretty graphic, but the violence of Dishonored 2's executions add extra weight to the lethal/nonlethal decisions at the heart of the game. 

Video via SwiftyLovesYou.

Decapitation in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Being and Orc in Shadow of Mordor has to be one of the worst jobs going in PC gaming. Talion is absolutely merciless. Shadow of Mordor's take on the Arkham knight combat system benefits from the addition of a very sharp sword and a dismemberment system. The flash of a blade, backed up by some excellent slashy sword noises, sells the execution. There are no Legolas-style flourishes here, only the straightforward aggression of a trained soldier looking for the fastest killing blow possible.

Video via YouNicIce.

One of the VIP missions in GTA Online's Executives and Other Criminals expansion tasks you with stealing a tank from Fort Zancudo, the game's high-security military base. After numerous failed attempts where the tank got blown up by police helicopters or someone's internet stopped working, we were convinced we had an inventive solution that made the most of Rockstar's sandbox tools. Here's what happened. 

Samuel: Here's what goes down in the 'Hostile Takeover' mission: once you're in Fort Zancudo, you've got to steal the tank, which is inside one of the hangars inside this sprawling military base. Soldiers open fire on you from everywhere, with shotguns and machine guns. If you manage to get to the hangar where the tank's stored, there are more guards at vantage points who open fire on you. 

Phil: Our previous attempts have gone…OK? We can shoot our way to the tank. We can steal the tank. We can even drive the tank out of the base. What we haven't yet been able to do is drive the tank from the base to the drop-off point. The police response is so fierce that the tank always explodes, usually on a bridge somewhere. I have a plan, though. On a trip to Blaine County's airfield, I noticed a Cargobob had spawned. It's a transport helicopter with a hook that lets you pick up and airlift vehicles. Vehicles like a tank, maybe? Let's find out.

Samuel: Rather than look up whether this is possible or not, we decide it's best to try it, just because the moment we lift a tank into the air could potentially be hilarious and rewarding.

Phil: I'm piloting the Cargobob, Samuel is our man on the ground. We also have additional support from PCG contributor Tom Hatfield. He owns a Buzzard armed with homing missiles, and so will be providing air support.

Samuel: Parachuting into the base from Tom's chopper isn't getting me very far, because the soldiers are ready for action before I've even landed. Plus, because I'm only half-decent at GTA, it's tough to land without braining myself on the side of the hangar. That's making the approach to the base rather hard, so we figure out a better strategy. Tom also owns an armoured car. How about we lift this car in using the cargobob, drop the vehicle off the hook, and I'll drive into the hangar unscathed?

Phil: I am very much into this plan. One thing: picking up cars with the Cargobob is trickier than I thought. Anything heavy weighs the chopper down. 

Samuel: Starting again, Tom spawns the car in the airport, and I hop in. The Cargobob hooks on, and Phil carries me over the city. I do seem to be quite close to the ground while dangling from the helicopter, and come very close to smashing into Vinewood Hills at one point. But you've got this, right Phil? 

Phil: Yup, we're good. Do not think too hard about those buildings that you're swinging perilously close to, Sam. Eventually I do get the hang of things, but it's slow going—and this car is definitely lighter than a tank.

Samuel: Eventually we arrive at Zancudo, and Phil drops me off from a great height. The car slams down and I rev towards the hangar, knocking down a soldier who means only to serve his country on the way, and arrive inside without losing any health. Since the car is bulletproof, I can kill all the guards with my SMG without even leaving the driver's seat. This is working beautifully. With the hangar cleared, I climb into the tank and take it. I make a break for the runway, where Phil's going to pick me up.

Phil: It's my time to shine! Just…just hang on a second while I get this hook positioned. No, that hasn't done it. Er...? This is a lot of grinding on your roof for very little reward. I don't think the Cargobob can lift a tank. Oh well, time for Plan B. We do have a Plan B, yeah?

Samuel: This is...embarrassing. What an absolute non-event. I've been reversing the tank back-and-forth for ages trying to get Phil's damned hook onto it, while under heavy gunfire from gathering soldiers. We later learn the Cargobob was nerfed some time ago, and that this strategy isn't viable. Oh well! Guess I'll just have to drive this thing out the front entrance and take the freeway. It'll be crucial that the other two guys keep the helicopter fire off of me.

Phil: My Cargobob is now useless, but, as CEO of a corporation, Tom is handing out helicopters like they're redundancy packages. He spawns one on a nearby beach, and, as Sam shoots his way out of the army base, I awkwardly land my 'Bob, and climb into a lighter, faster, gun-ier chopper. There's now two of us providing air support in Buzzards, which should help with the police helicopters that have thwarted our previous attempts.

Samuel: I take as many police cars out from the ground as I can with the turret, but the tricky part is the bridge along the escape route, which is always barricaded by a ton of law enforcement. Phil and Tom have done a solid job of keeping the choppers off of me, and Tom heroically lands a rocket on one of the barricades as I leave the tunnel, clearing the way. At this point, I'm nearly at the drop-off, and the tank's still in good condition.

Phil: I shoot a few helicopters down, but the amount of police fire is overwhelming. I explode in a hail of gunfire and rockets, and respawn under a bridge. I run back to the road, but stealing a car is difficult when there are so many cops on the ground. I use my rocket launcher to bring down any stray helicopters between respawns, but otherwise Sam's on his own.

Samuel: It's all down to me, but the police presence has calmed down as I reach the objective marker. By this point in the mission, the tank is usually on fire, or making a sound to indicate it's going to explode. This time, everything's intact thanks to the guys keeping those choppers off of me. I reach the objective marker. It's done!

Phil: Hey, we did it. I celebrate with the lads over Skype as yet another policeman shoots me in the head.

Samuel: As the mission ends, the police back off from me immediately, despite the tank being parked right in front of them. Classic. This mission took us about six attempts, and pays out no more money than any other grind-y mission in GTA Online (something like $20,000), but damn, raiding Zancudo is still the most fun thing you can do in GTA. I definitely want to try this mission again, maybe with Tom or Phil in the tank, and me trying to ward the choppers away with a Hydra jet (which is harder than using the helicopters, since the AA guns in Zancudo make it hard to steal a plane). 

That was easy for the first time, because the strategy was sound and the game let us use the tools effectively, even if we sadly weren't able to use the Cargobob's hook. It was a classic GTA set piece. 

When I excitedly explain what we did to my girlfriend later—that we tried to steal a tank with a helicopter, and when we couldn't, we instead lifted an armoured car into the military base to get the job done—her response was withering. "I don't want to buy into gender stereotypes, but that's such a boy thing to do." A fair point.

Even now, some six years since the fifth Elder Scrolls instalment first graced our screens, Skyrim can look gorgeous with the help of the right mods. There are loads of them, and while last year's Special Edition is still playing catchup so far as updates go, Delta 6 has now upgraded milisot1325's Animated Feathered Wings. 

With reworked animations, Animated Feathered Wings lets you "play as an angel, divine being, or cross-bred freak of nature", so explains Delta 6 on the mod's Nexus page. 

By adding 30 craftable mutagens to the game—which are available at any cooking station—simply consuming the toxin grants players celestial appendages. In doing so, all fall damage is eliminated and while SKSE is not yet available for Skyrim Special Edition, Delta 6 lists a temporary solution for increasing jump height in the meantime via the link above.  

Here's how the mod works in practice:

At present, Animated Feathered Wings includes four styles of wings in 'Old', 'Guardian', 'Sorcerer', and 'Soul Hound'—each of which houses multiple colour schemes. 

"The wings are fully animated, have appropriate sound effects, and behave properly when the player sprints, jumps, casts spells, sneaks, swims, etc.," explains the mod's creator. "The wings are permanently attached to your character and will only be removed by consuming the craftable 'Cure Mutations' potion or changing your race (this includes vampire lord and werewolf transformations, unfortunately)."

More information on Animated Feathered Wings, including installation instructions, can be found via the mod's Nexus page.

Shadow of the Colossus-inspired action-survival game Praey for the Gods has been trucking along since hitting its Kickstarter goal in 2016, with regular newsletter updates charting its progress (though it was last in the news for having to change its name after a trademark dispute with Bethesda). The latest newsletter doesn't show off any god-slaying combat, but it does show off something almost as enticing: a new climbing system that lets you grappling-hook to any rock surface and climb, climb, climb. Developer NoMatter Studios doesn't specifically call out The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as an inspiration, here, but it's a safe bet the freedom of the latest Zelda has made everyone reconsider the climbing in their games.

"A large part of our game is climbing and we weren’t using it as much as we should have," the newsletter says. "Then we ripped the band-aid off and just set all terrain to 'climb.' Currently, it means the player can climb the ground (we’ll fix that)... but overall it's awesome!... The freedom and the overall sense of exploration went through the roof. That, coupled with the improvement to the overall scale, really felt epic."

The update also shows off a new feature that goes hand-in-hand with climbing: a glider, which will let you parachute off high peaks after you've proven you can climb them. 

"I was worried it would break bosses or make them too easy," the newsletter continues. "It actually does the opposite and it makes the combat way more awesome and epic. Also, you now have a much more strategic choice to climb up and then try to leap to a boss with a little more range… This is something we’ve found makes the game and world come alive. With our storms you can quickly get into trouble as you think you are safe but the wind gusts will push you around and cost you precious stamina, and could also push you into harm. If you are lucky you can use your grapple hook with it and overall movement in the game feels insanely fun and freeing."

Praey for the Gods is one of the first games we've seen to directly channel part of what made Nintendo's latest Zelda game such a joy to explore, but it certainly won't be the last. You can read the full update here, which talks about other features coming to the (mercifully not Early Access) survival game as it progresses.