For too long have you remembered Ron Gilbert as the peddler of point-and-click adventure game comedies like The Secret of Monkey Island, despite his long history of forays into other genres. From now on, you are only> allowed to remember him as the purveyor of Dragon Quest-flavoured perpetual motion machines that satirise bureaucracy and precarity. I'm referring to Death By Scrolling, Gilbert's latest project with Terrible Toybox NZ and publishers MicroProse. MicroProse? This seems awfully intuitive for that brand. Barely a dial or a light-up acronym to be seen.

Read more

Workers at soon to be under new ownership Electronic Arts are reportedly struggling with a push from management towards trying to use AI for "just about everything". That's according to a new report, which claims staff are concerned about the likes of code mistakes they'll then have to clean up and the tech being trained to replace them.

Read more

The USA's Immigration Customs Enforcement service, aka ICE, have started using imagery of Microsoft's sci-fi shooter Halo for recruitment posts on social media, even as Gamestop and the US administration indulge in some bantz characterising Donald Trump as Master Chief, and even as Microsoft attempt to flog a new Halo game.

Read more

Twice now Hollow Knight: Silksong devs Team Cherry have put out a Simplified Chinese translation of the Metroidvania, only for Chinese players to point out some stuff it does weirdly. Well, in their third crack at providing said translation, Team Cherry look to have gone the tried and trusted route, introducing a fan-made one people already like with the latest update to patch 4's ongoing Steam beta.

As a quick recap, the Simplified Chinese translation Silksong offered at launch was flagged as being a bit Shakespearey, leading to mixed reviews of the game in the region. Team Cherry were quick to introduce a second translation in an attempt to rectify the issue, but that one ended up earning thumbs downs from players due to how it translated some place and character names.

Read more

Bully, Rockstar's classic boarding school Bart Simpson simulator, is about to have another massive multiplayer mod fired at it from a slingshot. The mod's dubbed Bully Online, stands atop the battered blazer of a previous attempt to let a bunch of folks play Bully together, and is set to arrive in paid early access this December.

Read more

After much wrangling with players over Civilization 7’s Age system, which sees you taking charge of different civilizations as you progress from Antiquity into the Modern era, Firaxis are bringing back the option to play as one culture all the way to the endgame. They’re now playtesting the feature internally, and want players to help by way of a new community testing initiative, the Firaxis Feature Workshop.

Firaxis have also shared a few snippets from Civilization 7’s update 1.3.0, due in the week of November 3rd alongside the Tides of Power DLC, which will be free to existing owners of the troubled 4X strategy game over the Xmas holidays. Update 1.3.0 is all about nautical doings and conspirings, with new naval units and buildings, the addition of ranged combat to ocean warfare, and some delightfully soggy terrain features.

Read more