In the first post for my series on "saving" open world design, I complained that many of today's open worlds feel like checklists of formulaic tasks and rewards, their geography a vaporous staging ground for itemisable, cycling content-gathering opportunities, which flies in the face of the sense of freedom and wonder they're supposed to inspire. My interviewees, Elder Scrolls veterans Matt Firor and Nate Purkeypile, argued that this reflects the expense and scale of today's open world productions, which constrains experimental design both at a practical level and in terms of overall direction.

CD Projekt open world designer Jakub Tomczak doesn't, as far as I know, have an answer to the issue of production bloat, but he does have a disarmingly obvious solution to the 'checklist problem', based on his time creating missions for Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty expansion: get better at hiding the checklist. Weave it into the landscape and setting more artfully, with an elegant balance of randomisation and responsiveness to the player's behaviour which keeps everything fresh.

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It is with quiet anticipation (and some nervousness) that I await to be stepped upon by a freaky mech in The Forever Winter. If you missed its announcement in May, The Forever Winter is a co-op extraction shooter set in a grim future where you struggle to survive amid an unending hyperindustrial war. Since that reveal developers Fun Dog Studios have mostly been sending out small "burst transmissions" - essentially footage from the hellfront - like this patriotic beheading and some panicked gunfights. But today they've made a longer video revealing an early access release date. And - oh! - it's quite soon.

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Every now and then I reflect on the statistically determined average age of a Gamer – what is it now, 36, 37? Please let it still be under 40 – and realise with alarm that, by extrapolation, a lot of the people reading this probably have children. Augh, children! Please excuse me while I go stand on a chair, clutching a broom. I’ve never understood the craze for generating smaller versions of yourself. It’s one of those weirder subcultures you read about in the papers, but rarely observe in daily life.

I do, however, understand the appeal of same-screen co-op games like Run From Mummies - which, being a bloodless comedy dungeon romp, seems like a fair pick for those encumbered with boisterous selfspawn. Don’t worry, the “mummies” of the title are just regular old disembowelled corpses wrapped in cloth, not those sinister, non-embalmed “mothers” you’ve been hearing about down the grocers.

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I do like a combat system that resembles an overflowing dressmaker's draw, full of bouncing rubber thimbles and coils of bunting. While it's not quite as chaotic and entangled as say, Disgaea, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of those games. I'd call it "baroque", but that would be out of synch with developer Sandfall Interactive's stated influences: the new RPG takes place in a molten and fragmented fantasy world based on the Belle Époque or "beautiful era" of late 19th century France. Your job as player is to stop a sorcerous Paintress from painting everybody over a certain age out of existence. We'll circle back to the plot, though. First, the excessively ornate battlin'.

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The slugcat of Rain World is a distinct little character. He flops around, squeezing through narrow tunnels with a movement that's both cute and mildly gross. When he is eaten by a passing disco lizard or ravenous skull-faced vulture, it is because he is basically a delicious Squirmle existing in a horrifying cryptozoological ecosystem. He is, however, never stepped upon by a mech with a missile launcher. He is never given a shotgun and tasked with shooting the other animals. Yet that basically seems to be the elevator pitch for Uruc, a sci-fi metroidvania set in a distant future where strange life battles mechanical monstrosities.

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Almost a decade after his acrimonious departure from Konami, the shadow of Hideo Kojima still looms over Metal Gear Solid. He's there, barely camouflaged, in the undergrowth of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater - a remake of the fifth Metal Gear game, originally released in 2004, which tells the tale of a lone US special operator hunting superweapons and old mentors in the jungles of the southern Soviet Union.

I say "remake" but this feels more like a re-release, in spirit. True, it now runs on Unreal Engine, with the option of a manual, third-person perspective and cover-shooter controls in addition to the old top-down viewpoints. Yes, it boasts new flourishes, such as wounds now leaving scars, and clothes picking up stray leaves. Yes, there's a new interface with floating in-world menus, which makes shuffling between the layers a bit less awkward. It's the product of much labour, with development split between Konami and external support partner Virtuos. But where Konami's other big restoration project, Bloober's Silent Hill 2 remake, is a creative dialogue with the original game, Delta seems consumed by faithfulness to Kojima's original design.

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Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! As is customary, I must jam my new cat into every article. I’ve tried to offer her several books, but she’s failed to turn even a single page so far. What a big dumbo. The best dumbo. The sweetest, smartest dumbo in the world, yes she is. Ahem. This week, it’s Supermassive, Niantic, and Sensible Object narrative designer and Limit Break mentor, Anastasia Dukakis! Cheers Ana! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?

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Sundays are for more cat. She’s flop and headbutt-level comfortable around me now, but she still seems a bit terrified of my house in general. I’m going to hang out with her a bunch and see if I can instill some sort of object permanence re: my presence in the home. Before that, let’s read this week’s best writing about games (and game related things!)

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Hello hello hello! This is Edwin chatting. I don't usually get to do these weekend features, but Ollie and James are busy working their magic (stripmining Black Myth: Wukong for guides and fleeing Gamescom), while Nic can't type complete words anymore without getting his hands eaten (see latest domestic update, below). I know that Ollie usually does a picture puzzle for you, but I am comparatively innocent in the ways of Photoshop and more importantly, very lazy - so lazy that I can't think of an elegant way to complete this paragraph, and will proceed immediately to stating: here's what we're all playing this weekend.

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"Age of Empires with dinosaurs" is, the developers of the Dinolords recently told me in a cramped Gamescom booth, a flattering description for their upcoming England vs. Vikingsaurus RTS. It’s also not a terribly accurate one. From what I saw of the game, Dinolords is more about the lords than the dinos, having as much in common with Diablo-style ARPGs as it does with classic strategy. And that’s a distinction which might just elevate it out of novelty status.

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