Valve are joining all those great internet thought-leaders and telling you to clean your room, or at the very least to play the games that you’ve bought on Steam. Running this weekend until May 28th, 6pm GMT, the Steam Spring Cleaning Event provides a front-page checklist of games to try or return to, and rewarding the diligent with goodies to decorate their account page with.

All fluff, really, but as good an excuse as any to dust off something you might have picked up a few sales back. Of course, undermining this push, there’s also a bunch of free weekend trials open on discounted games which also count towards your total. The list includes action RPG Grim Dawn, four-on-one competitive horror game Dead By Daylight and stylish 4X sci-fi strategy game Endless Space 2.

(more…)

Chet Faliszek, the former Valve fella best known for his work on Left 4 Dead and writing other good words for games, has joined forces with former Riot Games principal technical designer and AI bod Kimberly Voll to found a new studio. Stray Bombay Company is its name (as in Bombay cat), and drawing people closer through play is its game. They haven’t announced any specific game yet but do mutter about wanting to make games we can play over and over, where we get on as teams, and where AI shapes the whole thing. They basically described Left 4 Dead, though I wouldn’t assume that’s exactly what they’re making.

(more…)

Turtle Rock Studios, the mob who created Left 4 Dead, are revisiting their cooperative zombie-shooting days in Back 4 Blood, a name which seems a clear a statement of intent. Expect to shoot a load of zombies together with your pals, though Turtle Rock are keen to stress that they want Back 4 Blood to be more than just Left 4 Dead with a new name. Today’s announcement is mighty vague, without even a logo to show for it, but they do hint that it’s got some new tricks. No, it’s not a battle royale game.

(more…)

Hooting echoed across the virtual valleys and mesas of the Internet this week after those who pan the digital stream in search of anything ending with “3” got an inkling that former Valve writer Erik Wolpaw had returned to the Half-Life mob after leaving in 2017. And yep, Wolpaw has confirmed to me that he is doing work for Valve these days – because he never really stopped. Apparently he’s been contracting for them all along, working on this and that as needed, on top of working for his niece’s juice shop (which was not a joke). Looks like the digipanners found Fool’s Three.

(more…)

I’m not sure if Valve’s latest promotional wotsit on Steam knows whether it’s coming or going. On one hand, it’s nice that the Spring Cleaning Event (running until Monday, 28th May) is nudging players into trying out games they may have bought in sales and never touched, but pairing that with nine simultaneous free weekend events does somewhat undermine the message.

Ah well, it’s an excuse to play videogames all weekend. Can’t grumble about that. Plus, there’s an actual free game giveaway running – take a peek within. Oh, and yesterday’s big Steam giveaway is still live until tomorrow, so try that too. Oh dear, there’s just too many games.

(more…)

The best shooters endure. While the state of the art moves on in other genres and leaves old designs in the dust, it’s as fun to fire a well-made shotgun from an early 90s FPS as from one released today. For that reason, this list runs the gamut from genre classics to those released in the last year. There’s bound to be something for you inside.

(more…)

Sometimes you need a hand to hold, so we ve updated our list of the 25 best co-op games to play on PC with a headset-wearing friend or a muted stranger.

Everything’s better with a pal or two in tow, from collaborative puzzle solving to sublime double stealth takedowns. Equally sublime are when those takedowns go awry, your partner shrieks in panic and all hands are needed on deck to clear up the mess. Whether local or online, co-op games offer some of the best fun you can have in 2018.

(more…)

I d wager most folk around these parts devoured Left 4 Dead back in the day, just as I did. Valve s 28 Days Later with your friends infected my life for a good year, and a bigger, better sequel one year later only strengthened the disease. But as Valve haven t really been in the business of making games for a good few years – hopefully, that s about to change – and while it felt like Left 4 Dead was going to change the world back in (oh no) 2008, for a long time nothing filled the rotten hole where my heart used to be.

That is, until Fatshark s rowdy rat-smash, Vermintide. The four vs the world setup and the UI were highly reminiscent of Left 4 Dead, and what are Gutter Runners and Pack Masters if not reskinned Hunters and Smokers? But there was much more to that game than swapping out zombies for skaven. With both series now/still on their second games, let s look at how Vermintide ran with the legacy of Left 4 Dead, while managing to forge its own identity.

(more…)

They lurk, they creep, they skulk and weep. Monsters in videogames can be as simple as a big spiky cyclops ball, or as unsettling as a sobbing woman in a rainy alleyway. This week on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, the team is talking about their favourites, from flaming skulls to digitally possessed diving suits, and the clever ways in which game monsters inspire heebies, jeebies, creeps and sometimes even willies. (more…)

Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games.> But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol’ breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.

Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.

(more…)