The Sims is in an odd place right now. In September, it was announced that the game's publisher EA had been sold to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, equity firm Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners. This unsurprisingly was met with concern from Simmers, particularly in relation to the series' generally pro-diversity stance, and whether or not it will retain that in the future. And in a recent interview with art director of the original Sims and a lead designer on The Sims 2, Charles London, the developer shared why he felt it was "incredibly important" the games include same sex partnerships.

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Marshal, if my hastily scribbled, made-up blackboard equations are correct, we should witness a double event within the next year or two. No, not a double kaiju event. A double kaiju clean-up event. Somewhat to my surprise, job sims in which you dismember dead Godzillas are a thing, now. And by thing I mean that there are at least two of them on the way.

It’s going to be a battle for the ages. Alien vs janitor: whoever wins, we… get to walk around outside without stepping in puddles of Mothra bile. Please, sir, join me next to this second blackboard full of hastily scribbled, made-up equations while I slap them haphazardly with a cane and shower everybody in spittle.

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I'm sure I don't need to tell you that a majority of the data that various AI models train themselves on do so without getting any sort of permission to do so. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, as they say, though in the case of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, they probably shouldn't have taken that lesson to heart. That's because Japan's Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA) has requested that the AI developer stops using Japanese media to train its text-to-video model Sora.

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RPS has received criticism recently for covering Arc Raiders, an extraction shooter, using writers who don’t normally like extraction shooters. Allow me to rectify this, by instead bringing you an appraisal of Arc Raiders on the Steam Deck as someone who doesn't know how to aim with thumbsticks.

My actual excursions into these robot-conquered wastes have thus been going terribly. And yet, it’s still abundantly clear that Arc Raiders is about as good a fit for the Deck – and, by extension, most handheld PCs – as you could realistically expect from a modern, high-fidelity, Unreal Engine 5-powered multiplayer lootshoot. Even if, at first, it doesn’t seem like it will even launch.

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Warning: Spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077 lie ahead.

Tabletop wizard and cool glasses-wearer Mike Pondsmith has teased having "ways" to bring Johnny Silverhand back in Cyberpunk 2077's sequel. Actor and serial whoa merchant Keanu Reeves hasn't been shy about being open to reprising the role were the opportunity to crash through his door waving some mantis blades about, but reconciling such a thing with the events of the first game could prove a bit complex.

This isn't the first time Pondsmith's let loose potential details about Cyberpunk 2, which developers CD Projekt have otherwise remained pretty tight-lipped about while they work away at it. Back in May, he alluded to having chatted to a dev at the studio about a city which "feels more like Chicago gone wrong" that's visited during the course of the game.

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Original Saints Row design director Chris Stockman is talking to the hellgods at Embracer Group about making a prequel open world game, possibly set in 1977 and containing absolutely no dildo bats. This comes almost two decades after Stockman left Saints Row development studio Volition, and a couple of years after Embracer closed Volition amid wider cuts.

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Cancelled Rockstar espionage flick Agent ended up being filed away without releasing because the studio found a spy narrative impossible to reconcile with their open-world approach to games, according to long-time GTA writer Dan Houser. Despite that, Rockstar subsequently ended up getting halfway up the road of a secret agent-centric GTA 5 DLC before opting to don cowboy hats instead.

If the name Agent isn't ringing any bells for you, Rockstar announced what would've been their take on a Bond-style spy game at E3 2009, attaching a PS3 exclusive tag to it. One would assume it'd likely have hit PC at some point, had it not ended up gradually fizzling out into cancellation instead.

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We were late to the party with the last big horse game, Umamusume: Pretty Derby (I confess, I avoided it because I'm not that keen on gacha, though I do watch Gold Ship/Michael Jackson crossover memes on the toilet), so I'm getting in on the ground floor with Sha Beast Dressage.

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November is here. The sunny uplands are far behind us. The great gilded procession of Videogaming trundles and cavorts through the deep forest. The bells of the indie jesters are muffled by fog, and the CEOs peer anxiously from their carriages of scarlet and bronze, instructing their guardsmen to beware the union organisers concealed in the undergrowth. Keep watching the trees. Everytime you glance away, they become a little more like placards. Do you see the moths, idly winking on boughs? They are the Maw's eyes. Those distant, whistling spirals of pine, somehow immobile behind the foreground trunks, in defiance of the rules of perspective? They are the Maw's lungs. Those squirrels having shouting matches with magpies? Erm. The Maw's thrombocytes, maybe.

Listen! The crunch of twigs and leaves under hobnailed boots. Approaching torches. It is a refugee party of freshly released PC games. Let us pick the heartiest or strangest from their ranks to bolster our forces, before the shadows close in for good.

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The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed a new name recently carved into the wall of the RPS treehouse. Callum Williams quietly snuck in earlier this month as a Guides Writer, and his energy and enthusiasm is already proving infectious, despite the best efforts of us grizzled and miserable veterans. Please welcome him in the comments below!

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