Netflix has just announced a handful of new anime projects, and among them is "an original anime series" based on Dragon's Dogma. For the uninitiated, Dragon's Dogma is a cult open world RPG originally released in 2012 by Capcom, and directed by Hideaki Itsuno of Devil May Cry fame. It's very good.

Netflix announced that it will partner with Sublimation for the series, with the Representative Director of that company, Atsushi Koishikawa, writing that it's "excited to bring our unique cel-shaded animation that carries hand-drawn textures to anime fans around the world.” 

The short synopsis also casts some light on how the narrative will play out. "Based on a world-famous action RPG set in an open world, Dragon’s Dogma from CAPCOM will be brought to life as a Netflix original anime series. The story follows a man’s journey seeking revenge on a dragon who stole his heart. On his way, the man is brought back to life as an Arisen. An action adventure about a man challenged by demons who represent the seven deadly sins of humans."

For those among us ambivalent towards anime, the news is still exciting: it means  Capcom is invested in the series, pointing to the potential for a sequel. And given that Hideaki Itsuno has just wrapped up Devil May Cry 5, perhaps we'll hear an announcement sooner rather than later? In a recent interview with VG247, Itsuno revealed that it had been his choice to develop DMC 5 over Dragon's Dogma 2, heavily insinuating that the latter comes next.

The Netflix announcement also included some other projects, including Altered Carbon: Resleeved, Spriggan, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, Vampire in the Garden, and Super Crooks.

Capcom's Hideaki Itsuno apparently considered making Dragon's Dogma 2  rather than Devil May Cry 5, as reported in a recent interview.

Itsuno, director of Dragon's Dogma and the Devil May Cry series going back to the third entry, is said to have approached Capcom founder Kenzo Tsujimoto when talk of Devil May Cry 5 first arose, according to an interview with VG24/7. "Look, I want to make either Devil May Cry 5 or Dragon’s Dogma 2 next. He said ‘okay, do whatever you want. Do whichever one you want.’ So I thought, alright, y’know what… let’s do DMC5. So we did that.”

It's no secret that Dragon's Dogma fans have been waiting for news of a sequel to the popular open world RPG for a while now. Even though it seems to have lost out to DMC 5 this time around, a sequel is clearly something that Itsuno has considered.

“Here we are—we’re now finishing up DMC5. But I had ideas for Dragon’s Dogma 2 at the time as well. So here we are, it’s the end of this project,” says Itsuno in two of the most teasing sentences I've possibly ever read. He does go on to say that he always has 'around four different titles in mind' but that there is a difference between the games he wants to make and the ones he should make.

Fingers crossed it happens one day, huh?

During the holidays I started a new playthrough of Dragon's Dogma, and while I barely made a dent in it (it's a long game), it did remind me that there's still nothing else like it. The sense of going on adventurous expeditions rather than simply ticking off quest icons is what I love most about it, but I love pretty much everything else too (except for the absence of the original and best intro theme).

Anyway, it's super cheap on Steam at the moment – $9.99, down from the usual $29.99. At that price (and assuming you have the money) it's pretty much essential. And if you don't like it, you can either a) let it sit unplayed in your library forever or b) maybe try having better opinions? 

Leif enjoyed it back when he reviewed the PC edition in 2016. "The PC port doesn't introduce much new and certain elements could be stronger, but Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen still shines as a uniquely enjoyable RPG," he wrote.

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. 

On New Year's Eve 2016, game designer Hideaki Itsuno tweeted this to his followers:

Almost immediately, rumours and speculation tied to a new Devil May Cry or Dragon's Dogma game swept the interwebs—both series of which Itsuno has served as director—with many eyeing last week's E3 conference as the prime stage for an announcement. 

Despite E3 2017 delivering a number of new games, announcements and trailers, though, Itsuno's work failed to show its face—prompting the man himself to apologise to prospective players. 

"Sorry to not announce anything at E3," said Itsuno. "Please wait as my project is progressing smoothly."

Some replies ask Itsuno to aim for September's Tokyo Game Show to make his elusive reveal, however the designer remains tight-lipped for now. I've never gotten into the Dragon's Dogma series myself, however I'd bite/slash your hand off for another DMC. 

While we wait for Itsuno's elusive call, however, have a gander at Samuel's interview with the Dragon's Dogma devs on bringing the 2012 RPG to PC. It takes an interesting behind the scenes. 

Thanks, Videogamer. 

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, an open-world RPG from Capcom that we said last year "shines as a uniquely  enjoyable RPG," is now available on GOG. It's DRM-free, as is their way, and it's also cheap: Until June 20, you can pick it up for $12. 

Dark Arisen is an updated version of the original Dragon's Dogma, which came out in 2012 for the Xbox 360 and PS3. It includes all DLC, a new zone and fast-travel system, new items and quests, and of course all sorts of tweaks and bug fixes. The updated edition was released in 2013 for consoles, and in January 2016 for the PC. It's been on Steam since then and has accumulated a "very positive" rating across nearly 6200 user reviews. 

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen on GOG features full support for the Galaxy client, including cloud saves, leaderboards, and achievements, and the Pawn system and the Ur Dragon work in exactly the same way as they do on Steam. However, because the GOG Galaxy servers are separate from Steam, you won't be able to move saves or stuff from one to the other—As GOG put it, "This is a fresh start."

Sometimes it’s obvious. Would there really be a treasure chest in the middle of such an unremarkable room, just begging you to open it? Please. Other times it’s almost impossible to tell. There will be an imperfection in the shape if you’re lucky, maybe a misplaced link of chain on the side or a wood grain that seems just slightly off. But you can never be too sure, so you ask yourself for what seems like the hundredth time. 

Is it a mimic? 

These days we just want to know if a treasure chest is going to sprout teeth and swallow us whole, but more than 40 years ago, identifying a mimic was a much harder problem. They weren't just treasure chests, and they weren't always mindlessly hungry for the flesh of adventurers. Some could speak and even bargain. Others would attack anything on sight. Some would grow to be the size of houses, others content to live as doormats. Or walls, floors or clothes. Toilets.Mimics have appeared in hundreds of videogames since the 1980s, usually as nothing more than a hungry chest. But when they first appeared in Dungeons & Dragons, they were so much more than that.

Making a murderer

D&D co-creator Gary Gygax coined the mimics we all know and love (and see in our nightmares) in 1974. Three years later, he gave players a clearer picture of mimics with D&D’s Monster Manual, but questions still needed answering. So, in 1983, Ed Greenwood—creator of D&D’s Forgotten Realms campaign and many of its monsters—wrote The Ecology of the Mimic, which compiled information from scattered lore into one definitive bestiary. He also made up a lot of new details to fill in gaps in player understanding.

“That was and is the fun in D&D for me, making stuff up,” Greenwood tells me over email. “In ways consistent with existing lore, so as to weave new portions of an existing tapestry.” 

Before the Ecology, mimics were just shapeshifting subterranean creatures that didn’t like sunlight. Incredibly flexible hermits, basically. But Greenwood delved into everything from how mimics transform to what potions you can make from their innards (polymorph, obviously). He outlined the two basic types of mimics: big stupid killers and small intelligent fiends. He shared the story of one bold mimic which spent two years as a statue sat square in the middle of town, curiously near a sewer vein “filled to a depth of more than 60 feet with human and animal bones.” It’s no exaggeration to say he changed the face of mimics forever.  

Greenwood’s Ecology is probably the closest thing to science to ever come out of D&D, but what’s even more interesting is how the characteristics it laid out influenced the mimics in videogames. Look at the ones in the original Ultima, released in 1980. These are aggressive monster chests that pounce when the player gets close. Sounds remarkably faithful to the Monster Manual, doesn’t it? 

Now look at Luggage from Discworld, released in 1995—after Greenwood’s ecology. Luggage is most definitely a mimic, but he’s also your companion. He’s a little disobedient, but sentient, almost dog-like and kind of cute. If nothing else, he’s far more intelligent than Ultima’s mimics. In fact, Luggage is one of the only ‘smart’ mimics in videogames. But why? Greenwood said that mimics are often intelligent enough to speak. So why are most mimics automatically enemies? To paraphrase a certain Doom review, wouldn’t it be something if we could talk to them? 

Despite Greenwood's definition of the mimic giving them the power to take any shape, mimics are almost always enemies in games largely because of technology. D&D players have the luxury of interacting with as many NPCs as they can imagine, but for early PC games like Ultima, creativity was measured in bytes. With an Apple II’s specs, there was barely enough room for a fantasy world, let alone rich dialogue. So, to meet gameplay needs, ‘the mimic’ was colloquialized to ‘the monster chest.’ 

Discworld had a little more wiggle room. Computers had improved since the ‘80s and it wasn’t a fantasy RPG like Ultima; it was a point-and-click adventure game, and those are popular because of their writing and charm. Thus Luggage was born, intelligence and disobedience intact. Hardware and genre influenced the design of both games’ mimics, but both ultimately echoed the then-current standards set by D&D.

Jump to Baldur’s Gate in 1998. There wasn’t a shred left of the intelligence Luggage displayed; mimics were back to being regular old monster chests. Considering Baldur’s Gate’s wealth of dialogue and how faithfully it emulated D&D’s other systems, you’d think it could have made good use of a wise-cracking mimic or two. But while Baldur’s Gate didn’t have an easy time cramming an isometric RPG into a disc, its mimics were a result of design philosophy more so than technical limitations. Again, the focus here was on exploring a world, and to that end mimics were most useful as a clever way to liven up dungeons. And really, aside from the whole eating people thing, that’s what mimics have always been about: meeting the unique needs of games.

“Mimics are the workhorse shapeshifting critters, the most ubiquitous, versatile and yet low-powered,” Greenwood says. “Unlike, say, [werewolves], they have few strings attached to their shifting abilities, and lack the restrictions on form that most other shapeshifters have… Mimics can be anything, can have any degree of cunning a [dungeon master] requires, and the [dungeon master’s] desired patience, too,” Greenwood says.

Even when videogames are cherry-picking D&D canon, they’re still following it in spirit. Dungeon masters and game designers alike have always used mimics as plot devices and gameplay challenges as needed. So, you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

Conventions of mimicry

After a while, the mimics of early RPGs like Ultima started to influence other videogames as much as D&D did. For starters, focusing on a chest form led videogames to associate mimics almost explicitly with greed and treasure, and they were a convenient way of introducing risk/reward in dungeons. Why do you think mimics usually drop rare and valuable items? Look at Dragon Quest 3’s canniboxes and pandora’s boxes from 1988—alternate variants of the game’s vanilla mimics which appear later and drop better stuff. Look at Avarice, a boss in the more recent Titan Souls that not only is a gilded treasure chest but guards a roomful of treasure.

Perhaps most famously, look at the Symbol of Avarice helmet in Dark Souls, which improves your loot drops and consumes your health. It’s a sister item to the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring, which also ups your loot. Dark Souls treats mimics as symbols of greed on par with snakes, which have been used to represent gluttony for centuries. That’s saying something about how stigmatized mimics have become. I almost feel sorry for the greedy bastards. 

Early RPGs established a relationship between mimics and greed, but they also essentially codified them as chests, which may be why they appear so rarely in other genres or other forms. Toejam & Earl is a rare example from the early 90s, where the mimic took the form of an angry mailbox, attacking you instead of giving you presents. Again, greed is the throughline.

Dark Souls's mimics are gangly, chest-headed monstrosities, easily the most creative and terrifying to appear in a game. They also illustrate how some qualities in Greenwood’s Ecology evolved into gameplay mechanics. From Software held off on making ladder mimics (to the delight of a grateful universe), but Dark Souls’ mimics hide their true bodies and may be bipedal or quadrupedal, which is a subtle remnant of the true shapeshifting of old. The Ecology said mimics are sensitive to heat; Dark Souls’ mimics (and plenty of others) are weak to fire attacks.

Then there’s the “glue” that D&D mimics use to trap victims in place before mauling and eventually eating them. There’s no glue in Dark Souls, but if you get grabbed by a mimic, you likely aren’t going anywhere but a bonfire. In D&D, you have to pass a strength check to escape a mimic; in Dark Souls, you have to have a lot of vitality to survive the bite.

JRPGs like Final Fantasy offer another fascinating example: they don’t technically glue players in place, but you usually can’t escape from encounters with mimics, either. Many JRPGs also streamlined mimics even further. By viewing the fundamental idea of ‘player expects loot, gets a fight instead’ through the lens of random encounters, they created the ‘box of enemies.’ The chest itself isn’t even a monster anymore, just a trigger for a random encounter. Does that make it a mimic? No, but it’s still a different means to the same end, and it’s still hardware dictating design. Random encounters were instituted to free up memory, after all.

Mimics have started to show up more often outside the RPG genre in recent years, though they're almost always still chests. Games like Borderlands 2 and Magicka treat them as easter eggs. Terraria and Enter the Gungeon split mimics into tiers to suit their progression-based combat systems. Torchlight loves to hide mimics in groups of chests. 

Others still feature distant ancestors. Shovel Knight’s angler fish boss uses a treasure chest lure to draw in players. The ‘maneater’ in Dragon’s Dogma uses treasure chests like a hermit crab does shells. "Definitely not a mimic," Greenwood said of the maneater. "This is an ‘ambush predator."

Then again, the truest characteristic of mimics in Greenwood's Ecology is that they can take any form. Modern games that ditch the toothy chest are still staying true to that spirit. These things are everywhere if you really look. In other words, stay suspicious, because it’s probably a mimic.

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(What? Star Wars is totally fantasy.)

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It sure took its sweet time, but 2012 s console action RPG Dragon s Dogma finally landed on PC earlier this year. Without obvious warning, developer Capcom has now launched a teaser site for a new game currently named Project Palm that s written almost entirely in Japanese and makes mention of August 2, 2016. This is probably when we ll learn more. With the few clues we ve got right now, the internet reckons it s related to Dragon s Dogma.

Those of you familiar with the original will recall the glowing scars many characters boasted on the palms of their hands much similar to the header image featured on the Project Palm site. The folks at NeoGaf reckon this heralds a sequel to Dragon s Dogma, or at the very least another series entry.

The site also features a profile and coinciding video starring one of the game s voice actors, detailing his previous work. I unfortunately can t speak Japanese, so I can't say if there's any useful information in there. I will however leave this here on the off-chance one of you guys can:

Anyway, if Project Palm does turn out to be a Dragon's Dogma follow-up, the warm reception Arisen received earlier this year hopefully means it won't take quite as long to arrive on PC this time round.

I guess we'll find out more this Tuesday, August 2.

The PC games industry has broken January. In years past, it was a quiet month—a time to catch up on all of last year's releases. For the consoles, that's still largely the case, but on PC there's already a broad selection of new games vying for your attention. Our respective reviewers deemed seven of this month's releases worthy of an 80%+ score—with a couple of others that just missed the mark. With so much going on, it can be difficult to keep up. Hence this: a new monthly digest of the biggest reviews, news and features.

Reviews

Buckle up, this is going to be a big one—a fact exacerbated by the debut PC release of some former console exclusives. Take Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. It's a four-year-old Xbox 360/PS3 RPG given a new lease of life on PC. It's heritage didn't stop Leif Johnson awarding it a score of 81%. "It's rough in parts," he wrote, "and numerous other RPGs tell a better story or inspire greater awe. But Dragon's Dogma still feels enjoyably unique four years on and that's something few of its genre cousins can claim." A particular highlight is the pawn system, which lets you create a AI companion who can appear in other player's campaigns. The PCG community recently showed off some of their pawns, and the results were... distinctive, to say the least.

Also arriving from the consoles, albeit in a much more timely fashion, is Lara Croft's latest: Rise of the Tomb Raider. It's a fantastic action romp, and builds nicely on Crystal Dynamics' 2013 reboot. "In many ways, Rise of the Tomb Raider is peak sequel design: an incredibly similar game with a set of expanded and additional systems," wrote, er, me, in my 83% review. "But RotTR is also better because it lets you spend more time engaging with those systems." It's a good port, too, and looks positively sumptuous on PC. That's all well and good, but it doesn't explain where Lara's keeping her infinite supply of glowsticks.

Our highest score of the month was awarded to the surprisingly superb Pony Island. Weird and inventive, it's a game that's filled with tricks drawing you into its fiction through some devious vignettes. "Not only does in succeed in having meaning and a point to make," enthused Angus, shortly before slapping on a 91% badge, "but it remembers to be a decent game while it s at it—a game, no less, that left me doubting my own grip on reality." If you've dismissed this, it really is worth taking a look. Although, I do have one question: can you still be a pony when you're clearly a unicorn?

It's always exciting when a good new RTS rears its head. It's just a shame it doesn't happen very often. Luckily, this month we got Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. While some might view a planetary Homeworld as sacrilege, Rob Zacny was impressed—as evidenced by his 90% review. "In spite of all the ways this could have gone horribly wrong," Rob wrote, "Deserts of Kharak succeeds on almost every count. It's not only a terrific RTS that sets itself apart from the rest of the genre's recent games, but it's also an excellent Homeworld game that reinvents the series while also recapturing its magic." High praise, indeed.

"That's all well and good, Phil," you might be thinking, "but what about me, a person who loves naught but meandering philosophy and mazes?" I'm not sure I like your attitude, fictional human, but I'll still point you towards The Witness. Edwin gave it 89%, and matched that number to numerous sentences, including: "Though not without its flaws, Jonathan Blow's The Witness is one of the finest teachers I've studied under;" and "it's one of the toughest games I've played in years."

If 600+ maze puzzles isn't your thing—and frankly, I'm not sure I'd blame you—consider the Oxenfree, which has exactly zero mazes in it. It's a eerie, atmospheric adventure game about a group of teens dealing with [MYSTERIOUS EVENT] on an island. "If you like smart, well-written adventure games with rich characters, well-realised settings, and beautiful art direction, it s worth playing," enthused Andy, awarding it 83%. I played this in one sitting last week, and it's one of my favourite of this month's many games. Top soundtrack, too.

Lastly, but not leastly, Ian Birnbaum forced people to journey ever deeper into a series of crypts—prompting them to lose their minds. But enough about how he spends his weekends. He also reviewed Darkest Dungeon, granting it a stellar score of 88%. "Dungeon diving and tomb raiding have been staples of PC gaming for decades, but Darkest Dungeon is the first time I felt how awful this quest must be for the people involved." I think that's a recommendation.

Other notable games:

• Aviary Attorney, 78%
• That Dragon, Cancer, 75%

On the next page: news, features and next month's outlook.

News

January tends to have more slow news days that most months, as publishers become very sleepy after eating all of that Christmas money. Nevertheless, a lot did happen. You can enjoy some of the month's biggest stories in bullet point form.

• The Oculus Rift pre-orders go live, along with a $600 price tag.
• An absurd no-gold pacifist Hell run is completed in Spelunky.
• Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw has left Valve. :(
• The founder of a Chinese hacking site claims Denuvo could defeat piracy.
• To The Moon sequel Finding Paradise has been announced.
• Titanfall studio Respawn is working on a third-person adventure game.
• Elite: Dangerous has space barnacles. Repeat! Elite: Dangerous has space barnacles!
• The lovely Lovely Planet is getting a sequel.
• Hitman is now officially episodic, instead of kinda episodic.
• It only took 21 years, but John Romero has made another Doom WAD.
• Minecraft: Education Edition is a thing now.
• Danganronpa is coming to Steam. So is its sequel.
• Hey, Bethesda, Obsidian is totally up for making another Fallout.
• Future Mortal Kombat X DLC packs will be skipping PC.
• The Overwatch beta returns next month.
• The creators of XCOM's The Long War mod are making official mods for XCOM 2.
• Former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider has left Bioware.
• An ARG has been discovered lurking in a bunch of unrelated indie games.
• Her Story 2 is happening, although it won't be called Her Story 2.
• Quantum Break has been rated for PC in Brazil.
• PC digital sales are trouncing mobile, says a market research firm.

Features

Websites are hungry beasts that live on a diet of words. We keep feeding our website words, but it is always hungry for more. Here, I shall recycle our past month's best words into a list, in the hope of tricking the site into a temporary cessation of its mewling.

• The team rounded up the RPG settings they'd love to see.
• James and Chris L played a game that pits suicidal baby against protective parent.
• We updated our list of the best FPS games. It is now 100% correct.
• Andy dug out some of the best PC game concept art.
• Tim gets Shipwrecked in Don't Starve's early access DLC.
• Rift or Vive? Wes compares the two big VR players.
• What is under the blanket? Chris L investigates.
• In our regular Why I Love column, Tom S praises Tomb Raider's Croft Manor.
• Chris T considers the value of selfishness in Dota 2.
• Jody reports on the Dawn of War mod scene.
• The team gets angry, and posts their best (worst?) ragequit moments.
• We list the 50 most important PC games of all time, with contributions from famous developers.
• Fredrik Salomonsson explores CS:GO's climbing scene.
• If you're planning to play Dragon's Dogma, Steven Messner has some tips.
• Chris L is trapped in an endless sandbox of destruction (and in the game). It's Garbage Day.
• Does Hearthstone's Druid combo need a nerf? I don't know, but Shevek does.
• I get some hands-on time with The Division's impressive PC build.
• Chris L tackles Metal Gear Online, with mixed results.
• Andy talks to a record label that's embracing games.
• Shaun spends time with Far Cry Primal's owl binoculars.
• Numenera master Chris T offers his thoughts on Torment's early access build.

Next Month

January will be a tough month to beat, but February has a good chance. For one thing, it's the release month of one of the biggest PC exclusives of the year... American Truck Simulator. SCS Software's follow up to the marvellous Euro Truck Simulator 2 will initially release with two of America's many states: California and Nevada. Will it do enough to distinguish itself from its predecessor? Does it even need to? Here's Andy's review.

The biggest PC exclusive of the year is probably XCOM 2, which also releases next month. It's a ridiculously exciting prospect, because Firaxis' first XCOM was such a fine resurrection of the series. The sequel seems to be improving on every aspect, and will offer full mod support to boot.

Other big games for February include Firewatch and Street Fighter V, both of which seem like a nice way to roll on 2016's great start.