Developer Sabotage has announced that its excellent retro platformer (with a twist!) The Messenger will be receiving a helping of free DLC next year on Switch and PC.

Known as Picnic Panic, The Messenger's free DLC update will feature a vibrant vacation theme, replete with oceans, palm-strewn beaches, and, yes, skull surfboarding. It promises to deliver a standalone storyline featuring three new areas, voodoo magic, callbacks to the superb main game, and boss fights - some of which, including a pleasingly pink octopus, can be admired in the reveal trailer below.

Based on one brief snippet in there, it looks like The Messenger's brilliant gimmick - in which (no spoilers) the game finds interesting new ways to evolve its wonderfully fluid, Ninja-Gaiden-inspired 8-bit action-platforming - is back, courtesy of the aforementioned voodoo magic. And there's some catchy new music to complement the whole thing too.

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Developer Sabotage Studio has just released a brand-new update for its excellent retro action platformer The Messenger, introducing a welcome New Game Plus mode for players on PC and Switch.

For those unfamiliar, The Messenger's retro platform action is at least somewhat inspired by Tecmo's classic NES Ninja Gaiden games. It's a tautly designed, meticulously paced little gem that unfolds as a series of linear platform challenges - each area a delight to navigate, thanks to the game's fluid move set. I wouldn't call it ground-breaking, but it's certainly extremely enjoyable - and presentationally it's wonderful too, with some bold 8-bit-inspired visuals, a catchy soundtrack, and some exceptionally entertaining writing.

That's only half the game, however; around about the mid-point, there's a significant twist, but it's one that you might prefer to discover for yourself if you haven't already been spoiled. If so, do feel free to skip the following paragraph - and, indeed, the semi-spoiler-y trailer below.

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I didn't realise, until I started playing The Messenger last week, that I had started to see this kind of game as a bit of a chore. The kind of game I'm talking about is the rigorously observed reconstruction of an 8-bit style of gaming, right down to the limited colours, three-slot save system and chugging, popping, tweeting sound effects. And I only realised I had started to see all this as a chore because I found I was surprised, an hour or so in, to be enjoying myself so much.

I am still a bit confused about it all, to be honest. I don't think it's the games I've played that have put me off. I loved Retro City Rampage, which managed to reimagine a modern open-world adventure for the era of the NES, and since then I have happy memories of a handful of similarly styled platformers and Castlevania knock-offs. They do start to blend a little, though, once they're left in the memory: I'm left with a generalised sense of artful glitches and anachronistic leetspeak.

And then, I guess, my own associations come in to muddle everything further. We're venerating these games rather than trying to do new things, we're making a brief period of gaming into a golden age at the expense of the present and, with that, focusing on a handful of attributes - difficulty, ninjas - and in some way limiting what games are.

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