I am late to walk the Path of Exile. Very late: the evergreen free-to-play dark fantasy action-RPG launched literal generations ago in 2013, the heyday of Bioshock Infinite and GTA 5. (It's still arguably the heyday of GTA 5. Bioshock Infinite, not so much.) It's my understanding that New Zealand-based developer Grinding Gears have released approximately one bazillion Path of Exile updates and expansions in the decade since, the latest of which, Affliction, is briefly detailed in a boxout down the page.

I am not your guy for blow-by-blow descriptions of what Affliction adds to Path of Exile. My cautious summary would be: lots of terrifying trees, and lots of modifiers. I am, however, your guy for a newcomer's snapshot verdict on the sequel ahead of the closed Path of Exile 2 beta on 7th June 2024. In a twist so far-fetched they might just pull it off, the new game is designed both for returning players and> newcomers, and I think a lot of that is epitomised by the just-announced Mercenary class, which reflects game director Jonathan Rogers's desire to create combat mechanics that are at once more involved and more inviting.

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Fallout 76 continues to add more new content to the experience. On December 5, 2023, the game will receive Season 15: The Big Score.

In Season 15 players will be able to earn S.C.O.R.E. by completing in-game challenges, with new cosmetics on the table for those who can climb up through the rank - such as the Diamond Dress Outfit or the Conqueror Power Armor Paint. Plus get new items for your C.A.M.P.

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This week on The Electronic Wireless Show podcast, we get a little bit removed from the rails, as it were. Things aren't looking great for Starfield - or at least, they're looking mixed, as in the Steam reviews, and verified but nameless devs are responding to negative reviews with comments that are basically like "no, our space game is fun and you're playing it wrong". We laugh about this (but also discuss the role of Steam reviews and devs replying to them). As well as that, the lads have been playing, well, the same sort of stuff this week, James brings us talk of mini PCs, and Nate makes us play Dracula or Russell Crowe. Extremely normal.

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Rome wasn't built in a day, but in sci-fi strategy game Stellaris Nexus, you can found, expand and fritter away a whole intergalactic empire in around an hour. In the case of my multiplayer hands-on, that empire was the Ix'Idar, a race of burrowing insect critters with a unique resource - pheromones. Boldly disregarding the PR's gentle advice that I start with an easier-to-master race, I set out to swarm the galaxy and immediately found myself at the bottom of the victory or "Succession" point scoreboard, with one player picking off my planets by means of espionage, while others stomped my fleets of stargrubs flat in no-nonsense space combat.

I did manage to briefly take possession of the titular Nexus, a throneworld which awards beaucoup Succession points to its owner, but it turns out fixating on the Nexus is a great way to set yourself up for a midgame dogpile - you pour resources into capturing it, sacrifice half your fleet to the first invader, then lose it all to the second. With my initially bountiful dominions rudely shrunk to a smattering of isolated planets, I took the coward's way out of the press event and said I had to be going because I had other work to attend to. I didn't at all! I just wanted to go and cry in the toilet. Alas for the Ix'Idar - not so much "lions led by donkeys" as an antfarm in the hands of a wilful toddler.

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After unforeseeable problems with Elon Musk's public image, my publishers delayed my debut young adult novel about teenagers saving the future using NFTs. I rolled with the punches, fighting back against Musk's cult of personality with a bold new direction for the future of the 'chain in the second novel of my Non-Fungible Future series. Well. I had expected both books to be in your hands already (and on the bestseller list), but now my publishers are concerned by that report declaring "the vast majority of NFTs are worthless". Well then! As we say on the Infobahn: when Turing closes a crypto exchange, he opens an ICO. So in the wake of Cyber Monday, I now present to you a sneak peek at my third Non-Fungible Future novel, a mint read I call 'Worthless'.

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Last time, you decided that seeing your outfit in cutscenes is better than telefragging. I understand the yearning for fashion, absolutely I do, but I'm not convinced you fully thought it through. I will point you to a comment by reader 'moderately sized grundus', who asked, "What could be more cosmetic than wearing the literal skin of your very recently slain enemies?" A strong question. But we move on. This week, I ask you to pick between explosive reaction and emotive composition. What's better: chain explosions or Diablo's Tristram theme?

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Dragon's Dogma 2's release date seemed to leak via European ratings board PEGI a little over a week ago, and sure enough, it's now confirmed. Capcom's fantasy sequel will launch on March 22nd, 2024, and there's a new trailer.

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In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only... compromise, calculation and license to misbehave. In Owlcat's forthcoming RPG Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, you play the free-wheeling head of an interstellar merchant's dynasty. Operating on the fringes of uncharted space, you're the owner of a Warrant of Trade that essentially lets you run your own miniature empire within the Imperium, deciding the fates of planets, amassing vast wealth and recruiting a motley crew of xenos, heretics and assorted weirdos. It's the kind of behaviour that'd get you vaporised if you were some run-of-the-mill Space Marine Chaplain, but out here on the frontier, you're allowed to act with impunity, providing you fulfil your overall mandate of adding to the God Emperor's glory and kicking the odd Eldar's head in.

Rogue Traders are arguably the only characters in Games Workshop's brutal and decrepit table-top setting that lend themselves to the role of CRPG protagonist, because they are the only characters in Warhammer 40K's Imperium who enjoy anything like the plot agency of a Commander Shepard. And with that, I think, comes an interesting transformation of the character alignment systems the game shares with other CRPGs such as Baldur's Gate 3.

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Extra-large news for aspiring ultrawide enjoyers: the Lenovo Legion R45w-30, a titantic 45in, 31:9 gaming monitor, is £100 off in the Cyber Monday sales. With its 5120x1440 resolution, overclocked 170Hz refresh rate, and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro support, that’s £699 for specs that can very easily set you back over a grand. And, unlike buying the combined labours and livelihoods of the entire RPS team, there’s no months-long bidding process for this curved screen – you can just order it off Currys.

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Dredge was pretty weird to begin with. The indie hit somehow melded fishing with cosmic horror - seamlessly - to create an enthralling adventure where you can never be sure if what you're about to haul out of the depths will have a normal amount of eyes or tentacles. The new Pale Reach DLC gets even weirder, a masterpiece of show-don’t-tell horror that manages to evoke some of the more inspired Bloodborne monsters as well as some of icy, supernatural scares from The Terror. And it's all centred on a big whale.

Spoilers ahead, friends, but in The Pale Reach, a massive icy landscape has suddenly appeared in the southern, well, reaches of Dredge's world, so naturally we’re off to see what that’s all about, ploughing along in our faithful fishing boat to the hostile new climate. Every path into the landmass is barricaded by imposing ice walls. It's a slog.

It’s also a great setup. We're made to instantly wonder what the hell hides in this treacherous ice field, and the answer is equally great: a massive corrupted narwhal with bulbous glowing eyes. The huge beast dwarfs your tiny ship, but mercifully it’s frozen solid in an even bigger chunk of ice, with only those very angry eyes poking out at us. Four angry eyes on one side of its head, to be very precise.

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