I didn’t realise how much I’d missed Metro’s ball bearing rifle till I spent two hours with Metro Exodus, the third in 4A Games’ cult series of post-Soviet, post-apocalyptic shooters. Goodness, that rifle. The sheer delight of cranking its Super Soaker handle. The vicious snap of escaping air when you pull the trigger. The rush to make the most of those few seconds of maximum pressure, and the panic when you empty the cylinder and all your shots start to bounce off. There’s no better advertisement for Metro’s raw-knuckled survivalist ethic and love of analog technology. It’s something I’ve held onto, as 4A’s flight from Moscow’s tunnels has exposed it to the slings, arrows, repetitions and inelegances of an open world. (more…)

Microsoft had a lot of games to announce at E3 2018, but it’s a little murkier this year to find out what was relevant for PC users. Some games were coming to both, others only to their Xbox One consoles. You could of course watch the entire conference right here, but for some there just isn’t enough time to wade through the entire show.

Not to worry though, here are all the trailers and news for you in one place. There’s a surprising amount of variety in the announced titles: from an old favourite making a return, much celebrated developers showing off their new series, to even a completely free game launching very soon. The games below aren’t in any particular order but you’re in for a long ride.

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If you want to see nuclear winter again, you’ll need to survive regular winter, as Metro Exodus has confirmed a release day of February 22nd, 2019. The FPS series based on the post-apocalyptic novels of Dmitry Glukhovsky is venturing even further away from the Moscow subways where all this started, this time roaming across big sandbox overground levels. And apparently fighting boat-chomping giant mutant pondlife at some point. Here, watch Metro Exodus’s new E3 trailer, which shows Artyom sneaking, skidding, canoeing, shooting, and stabbing. (more…)

Good news for fans of uncompromisingly bleak and incomparably atmospheric Eastern European sandbox shooters: an official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. sequel is on the way, original devs GSC Game World have confirmed.

The less-good news is that we re all going to have to continue playing mods for the original games for a while yet. According to the announcement, the game isn t due until 2021. And for those itching to pass the time with the similarly-themed Metro Exodus, that s slipped to next year, according to a THQ financial report. (more…)