A Realm Reborn has certainly come a long, long way in looking better than the piece of chocobo dung that was the original Final Fantasy XIV. The above video fails to show the quest system, UI or any PVP battles whatsoever, but the new environments actually look like places we’d like to explore. However, looking fun is a far cry from actually being fun.

As such, it’s impossible to determine whether this game deserves your hard-earned cash without creating a custom hotkey bar and playing the game itself. With surrounding MMO's going free to play left and right, A Realm Reborn needs to provide a very convincing argument as to why players should open up their wallets.

Those who had the misfortune of buying Final Fantasy XIV back in 2010 only need to ask to become beta testers for A Realm Reborn, though Square Enix is accepting applications from everyone as well. Here's hoping the game doesn't still feel like a beta when it comes out Aug. 27.

 



A short new development video from the team behind the Elder Scrolls Online teases us with yet another glimpse at how combat looks from a first-person perspective in the upcoming MMORPG. Released this week by developers Zenimax Online Studios, the video introduces the Kwama, a monster sure to torment us all—in first or third-person view—when the game launches next year.

While we've already seen examples of first-person combat in the E3 gameplay trailer and in various stage demos from the conference (via Gamespot for example), the Kwama video represents the absolute latest peak at how the first-person camera—so integral to any Elder Scrolls game—may function.

Equally intriguing for me is the look we get in the new video at the Kwama's habitat and the art style that appears to be at work in ESO. Native to Morrowind, the insectoids create burrows of egg mines that serve as a delicious-sounding food source for dark elves. Perhaps you'll stumble across a Kwama nest in one of the ESO dungeons we've been hearing about.

A new round of beta invites also shipped this week, so maybe some of you will get a chance to see for yourselves how tasty, or frightening, the Kwama can be.

For more on ESO, check out our most-recent hands-on look at the game as well as the Kwama video below.

Thanks PCGamesN.

Get a grain of salt ready. This leaked SimCity survey has some pretty exciting items on it—from offline mode to the ability to build mega skyscrapers that contain multiple zoning types—but it's hard to verify that it's actually from EA. And even if it is, these are all simply pitched features that the devs and publishers are trying to gauge our interest in. There's no guarantee that any of this will ever make it into the game... but it's interesting to look over in any case.

The survey, posted by Reddit user bigbrwnbear includes a few items that have already made it into the game: Superheroes, British and French city sets, and airships. This seems to suggest that this survey probably went out before the launch version of the game was finalized. We've collected the most intriguing items on the survey below:

Simulate to the Sky: Build Upward instead of Outward with SuperScrapers! Live, work, shop, and play under one roof: Have multiple zones in each Superscraper; Multi-layer transportation; Denser cities with bigger populations
Naming: Personalize your city like never before. Name your buildings, your streets, your businesses, and even your Sims in SimCity!
Shared Events: Partake in weekly events that occur across the SimCity world. Festivals, Zombie invasions, Sporting Events, and more. Each event is packed with missions and special rewards to decorate your city.
Terraforming: True God Mode powers give you the ability to raise/lower terrain and create your own regional maps, carve out lakes, rivers, and oceans.
Classic Mode: In offline or online mode, play a single fully functioning city using cheats and unlocks that allow you to create your perfect city.
Cities without Boundaries: The landscape is wide open. Push your cities for miles and miles. Set your own city borders.

If any of these features not already in the game end up on Origin (such as the fairly specific Roman Casino and Japanese City Pack), it would certainly lend some credence to the idea that this is the real deal. You can look over the full survey for yourself on imgur.

It almost goes without saying with the in-depth lore that is being created for Obsidian's upcoming isometric RPG, Project Eternity, but the minds behind it never intended for it to be a one hit wonder. Obsidian would like to keep making them for... yeah, Eurogamer got to the obvious joke first.

Creative director Chris Avellone told Eurogamer that another entry in the franchise was likely "if the first game does well enough and generates enough profit beyond the backer amounts we got," and that they would need roughly the same amount—namely the $3,986,929 the game raised on Kickstarter—for a follow-up entry. Regardless of how well Project Eternity does beyond the contributions of its backers, however, there are already plans to begin work on an expansion after the completion of the first game.

When asked if the franchise might ever become the kind of cross-platform blockbuster we've seen from the likes of BioWare, Avellone expressed that it was unlikely due to Obsidian's commitment to the PC.

"I don't know if it would grow into the console arena," he said, "and I wouldn't want to change the format for how Eternity is presented and the more Windows-focused aspects of it, because I think that's what makes Eternity what it is. So I don't believe it would go to the console arena for that reason. Our goal was just to make a PC-focused, much more keyboard-driven - something that's a bit more, for want of a better word, old-school."

In case you missed them, here's the latest batch of leaked screens from the brewing cauldron that is Project Eternity.

I am inside a virtual reality simulation piecing together the broken memories of a drug addict in the 1920s. For some reason, it looks a lot like Cornwall. For added confusion, I'm playing this via an Oculus Rift, meaning I'm inside a virtual reality simulation of a virtual reality simulation. The Rift hasn't even been released yet, and it's already being deconstructed.

This is Ether One, also known as Restorer. It's an adventure game that aims to pinch the first person storytelling of Half Life or Bioshock, but drop the pesky shooting that can get in the way. "We definitely need more games like this," says designer Pete Bottomley of White Paper Games. "I love what the Gone Home guys are doing, we're definitely in the same category." First person pick-stuff-up-and-look-at-it-ers, if you will. Both Gone Home and Ether One are experiments in using environments as characters, very literally in this case, as the game is set inside someone's mind.

"Some people fix cars, I explore hallucinatory memories of Cornwall."

Everything I know I've learned from rifling through desks at HQ before stepping into the memory machine. I'm a "Restorer," a person with the power to enter another's memories. In the setting of Ether One this seems to be a fairly ordinary job. Some people are accountants, some people fix cars, I explore hallucinatory memories of Cornwall. It's a living. Today's assignment is a woman called Jean, who I haven't met or spoken to at all. In fact the only person who's made any contact with me is my boss, a brusque and efficient woman whose voice comes over the radio. She just wants me to get in, repair the memories and get out. Don't stray off the beaten path, don't go looking for other memories, don't ask questions. I instinctively distrust her. I'm not a machine! I take pride in this made up job I only just found out about.

Let's talk about Mental Mindscape Cornwall for a second. In an attempt to save themselves time and money White Paper have gone for a clear, painterly style with their texture work, pulling Ether One away from the ocean of uniform Unreal engine games in both texture and colour palette. Playing it through the Oculus Rift is like I've just stepped into a landscape painting. It's great to see this ridiculous piece of future tech in the hands of a small indie team. Pete credits Epic for that. Unreal Engine 3 has Oculus Rift support built right in, and the result of collaboration between the two companies is that even tiny indie developers like White Paper get to finally fulfil their VR fantasies.

Sure, it looks lovely here, but the psyches you explore are full of dark corners too.

So I begin to explore the world around me, the mines and the buildings that surround them. Every single one is abandoned, as if one day in 1919 the miners collectively decided that digging holes in the ground was for chumps, and decided to enter the burgeoning mental-landscape-wandering industry instead. There's something very eerie about the whole place. I can half make out other explorable areas nearby, but they're all hidden in shadow and just out of reach. Ether One is full of little mysteries, like doors that close just as I approach them, only for my boss to stammer out a quick "Nothing to see here." Despite the ambient weirdness, the experience is all very laid back, no pressure, just exploration and mild puzzles in the haunting Cornish landscape. "I wanted the player to be able to take the game at their own pace." Explains Pete. "I didn't want to have too many timed elements in there, I wanted you to be able to explore and try and figure out and not be rushed through the world."

"Ether One is full of little mysteries, doors that close just as I approach them."

It's at this point that I finally get to find out what 'restoring' is. It's a special kind of interaction that moves a location through time, in this case forcing a damaged elevator to un-collapse and revert to working order. It's very pretty, but ultimately just a flashy way to open up a path to a new area. Pete, however, lets me know there'll be a lot more Restoration points in the full game, many of them optional, offering up new perspectives on the world.

Here I find the central conflict of the game. Jean's memory, here in the shape of a glowing rock that I'm certain I already saw in Restorer HQ at the start of the game. Attempting to deal with the rock/memory means I finally hear Jean's voice, begging me to stop. My boss compels me onwards, but now I'm torn. I'm just getting in to the rhythm of the brain-explorer role, but am I the bad guy here? Jean certainly doesn't seem like she signed up for this impromptu magic mind surgery, and it certainly feels like there's something going on here I'm not being told. On the other hand Jean is, by all accounts, not in her right mind. Is this just her instinct kicking in? Fighting back against the healing process?

The inside of a very tidy mind.

As the conflict comes to a head, there's a burst of blue light and Jean's mind begins to unravel. Which is unfortunate, as I'm still standing in it. Things tear apart and are sucked into a black hole, that then forms into the shape of a door. I'm drawn into it, and it opens onto a completely different location, a street that's disintegrating as I run down it, bits of the level careering past my virtual ears. For a second I have to remind myself that only one layer of my dual simulation is going wrong and I'm not about to prove all those 90s filmmakers right about the evils of VR.

"Jean’s mind begins to unravel. Which is unfortunate, as I’m still standing in it."

I steer myself from door to door, running through different memories. Jeans mind is tearing itself apart as my boss screams bloody murder in my ear. It's a complete change of tone, as Pete admits. "We wanted that intensity and pacing, we really like that in video games. But we wanted to keep that accessible for the players that aren't necessarily used to PC gaming that want to play puzzle games." That desire to avoid twitch reaction challenges results in another of Ether One's experiments first person storytelling. I'm being forced ever forwards, but I'm still in full control of the camera. I'm even able to veer from side to side, making choices as to which portal door I barge through, although I have no idea what'll be on the other side. It certainly feels free-er than a simple cutscene or forced movement, but I'm never really sure if the choices I'm making matter.

Then, as suddenly as things went crazy, the demo I'm playing ends, and I'm left with more questions than answers. Who should I side with? My boss or the client? What happened to Jean in that mine that tore her brain up so badly? What was lurking behind all those hidden doors? But most importantly, which is the real Ether One? The sedate, atmospheric puzzler that I spent half an hour with, or the sudden breakneck dash through a magical dreamscape that took over at the end? Pete is understandably cagey on the details, though he does confirm that the conflict between Jean and your boss is the one that drives the game. "You're not necessary forced to choose sides" He says. "We want the player to interpret their decisions however they want to and hopefully people will get different perspectives from the story in the end!"

Playing Ether One has left me with more questions than when I started, but they're the good kind of questions. I don't doubt it's possible to make a first person story without violence, I just want to know how it's all going to end.

Find out more on the Ether One site, and take a look at the trailer below for a moving look at that clean art style.

Bonnie. Russell. Shel. Wyatt. Vince. Five survivors, five stories set in the ongoing zombie apocalypse. And, I suspect, a bit of a trap; a clever title so that if I say "400 Days isn't very long," Telltale's writers can instantly snap back "Are you kidding? It's a year and a bit!" and dance the winner dance all the way back to San Rafael.

Luckily, while it only works out as an hour or so of The Walking Dead goodness, it feels longer - five fifteen-ish minute vignettes that hit the ground running and waste little time from there. The disadvantage of this is exactly what you'd expect, that dipping so briefly into these lives doesn't allow for the same connection as hanging out with the same survivors for several months. By cutting right to the point though, Telltale gets to explore a much wider range of stories - and more importantly, characters - than Lee and friends, whose dilemmas had to be designed to last and ripple over a whole series.

Kill or spare? Remembering, of course, that this is The Walking Dead, where sentimentality rarely goes rewarded.

Of the five stories, I really enjoyed three, didn't like one, and was neutral about another - not a bad ratio, and even the duff one had a couple of atmospheric and interesting moments to call its own. All focus on suitably different characters and journeys, with the zombies even more pushed to the background than in the original series. They're there, they're a threat, and sometimes they jump out and yell "GARRRGH!" (which is zombie for "BOO!"), but the actual drama comes from the survivors and their growing realisation of just how screwed they are.

By far my favourite of the set was Shel's chapter, which explores a protector relationship from a different angle to Lee and Clementine's. She's a big sister trying to do the best she can, struggling with the fact that little sister Becca isn't so little any more. The two live with a group of other survivors in a small commune where things are actually going pretty well. Even so, Shel is painfully aware that there's only so much longer she can shield Becca from the harshest realities of their new lives, and that's only made tougher by the fact that Becca doesn't actually want to be treated with those kid gloves.

I'm being intentionally vague because these stories are short enough that any real details are a bit of a spoiler, but this one works so well because Becca is a much more realistic character than the honestly too-adult Clem and, being The Walking Dead, there are no good choices on the table. The Walking Dead is at its best not when simply cynically portraying humanity as the monsters, but when forcing its characters to make the choices that lead down that road despite their good intentions. This is easily the series' best attempt at that. It elegantly but quickly establishes everything it needs, serving up a satisfying, thematically complete, potentially moving (depending on your choices) story in less time than it takes most games to explain how to open doors. It's fine, fine work, and a great example of how much Telltale's storytelling skills have have improved since the face-full of gigantosaurus snot that was Jurassic Park: The Game.

Can't wait for Fables, especially if it can do the character moments without the constant risk of jump-scares.

The other two stories I really enjoyed, Wyatt's and Russell's, are simpler, and built on excellent character writing. Wyatt and a friend are fleeing some mysterious assailants in their car, but really their story is all about the bromance. It's fun to have a pair of TWD characters who genuinely like each other, rather than one simply feeling responsible or them having no choice but to stick together. Their mild bickering and obvious camaraderie is refreshing. Russell's section works in a similar way, except that it's a getting-to-know-you affair about him, a kid on his own, simply being given a lift by a creepy and mildly crazy driver who'd likely be found hanging out with Tallahassee at the Zombieland bar.

Of the remaining stories, I didn't care much for Vince's, purely because it felt more like a short movie that occasionally remembered to stop for button presses than an adventure with choices to make, not least because as a prisoner on a transport bus, he literally spends most of it chained up at the back. The final one, Bonnie, I didn't like at all. It's built around what for now at least is nothing but a MacGuffin, is mostly an extended chase sequence about someone we barely know running from someone we don't know at all, and with a really clumsy use of what I normally refer to as "Schrödinger's Cock-up" - actively changing something crucial in the world to screw the player over an action. That's a dangerous trick, because if a game gets caught pulling it, all player investment is instantly severed. It got caught. All player investment was severed. Even if it hadn't though, this was a seriously dull story.

But like I said, one dud out of five isn't bad, and the others more than made up for it.

Vince's story is okay in and of itself. It just doesn't seriously need a player.

The events of 400 Days will have some impact on the upcoming Series 2, but take place long before the present day, so these specific stories may or may not play a direct part in it. (There's at least one moment that briefly continues a thread from Series 1, so it's best to play from a save if you have one, but it's far from essential - you will need to own at least episode one of the first season to download 400 Days, however) There's also a hint about what might be next, albeit it's so vague as to just be a teaser, unless it relates to something sinister that I don't know about in the comics.

Preview or not though, this is DLC well worth picking up. The new stories are a great way to slip back into this world, and very entertaining in their own right too. My only big disappointment was that I wanted/expected them to combine more directly, rather than being linked primarily by geography. There are definite linking points, some overt, others hinted at, but this is firmly an anthology rather than a multiple perspective story where everyone keeps crossing paths to uncover one big thing.

For The Walking Dead, of course, that's absolutely fine. 400 Days fits what came before, while also feeling like its own thing - exactly as DLC should - with Telltale taking full advantage of being able to do five different stories instead of picking just one. At £4/$5, it's also surprisingly good value. True, it's over quickly, but there's lot of content here - even if it is compressed and occasionally shows the limits of its scope with a missing option or two. If anything, it's surprising how much pathing there actually is, with decisions managing to have an impressive amount of weight in even the short time we spend with these characters. Series 2 may return to their stories, it may just put these survivors in the background for the next set to have a quick chat with and never think about again. In the here and now though, they feel like they matter, and that's what counts - even in a world with nothing left to lose.

Almost all of the team converge for the final episode of the PC Gamer UK podcast. Chris, Graham, Rich, Tom and Phil discuss a great many indie games, Company of Heroes 2, Sleeping Dogs, and answer your questions from Twitter. Join us for one last wild tangent.

Our US team will continue to produce their podcast, so this isn't the end of PC Gamer in audio form - but it is goodbye from us. As I say at the end of the episode, I've loved doing this and I've appreciated hearing from everybody who enjoyed the cast over the year I've been running it. We're looking into alternatives, and if you follow us on Twitter we'll hopefully have something for you soon.

Graham - @Gonnas
Chris - @CThursten
Rich - @richmcc
Tom - @pcgludo
Phil - @octaeder

You can download the MP3 directly if you like, and find all of our prior episodes on iTunes. Here's the YouTube version.

Show notes

Rich's moustache is briefly visible in this Vine.
Rich's Company of Heroes 2 review.
Chris has been playing Imscared, and also recommends Hide.
That Creepypasta Morrowind story. Warning! It's spooooooky.
Zafehouse Diaries, a game that - to be fair - should have been called Zafehouze DiarZ.
Nope, I've still got no idea where Rich's Wagner metaphor was going.
I got the URL for our new Planetside 2 website entirely wrong. It's pcgps2.enjin.com.
Slave of God, Increpare's clubbing sim.
My open letter to the internet regarding the Half-Life 3 joke.
The Saints Row 4 E3 trailer.
...and that's that. Thanks for listening, for sending us questions, and for sticking with us over 93 episodes. I've had the time of my life. Nobody puts podcat in the corner.

Life for many residents of Dishonored's Dunwall city is brutal, short, and dark. Fortunately, the possibility of a sequel to Arkane Studios' take on steampunk stealth appears to be anything but grim, according to recent comments made by Bethesda marketing VP Pete Hines to IGN.

When asked if he saw a future for a Dishonored series, Hines had the following to say: “In general, we try not to wade into anything as a one-off in the first place,” Hines said, “so yeah, for sure. The success of that game and how proud Arkane is of it and what goes on at any studio when they put out something like that and all the ideas that are coming out, certainly it’s something that we feel is a franchise.”

As we saw in its recent DLC The Knife of Dunwall, there is no shortage of strange and interesting characters in Dishonored who would be ready to pick up a blade and continue Arkane's story. Hines also used the game's trajectory as a way to talk about how publisher Bethesda views the development process within the various studios it works with. The possible creation of a Dishonored series is "specific to Arkane," he said.

“What we do or don’t do on Dishonored has zero effect on id, Tango, Machine Games," Hines said. "Each one, in some respects, kind of acts in a silo. It doesn’t really matter what those guys are making. ‘What are you good at? What are you going to work on next? What are you going to do next? Okay, that’s what we’re going to do.’ It’s as simple as that.”

A sequel to id Software's Rage, for example, is "to be determined," as that development team is currently at work on different, unnamed game, according to Hines. "Right now, focus is on their current project," Hines said. "They are full bore on that. What I’ve seen of it recently, I’m super happy about it. We want them to stick to that until we’re ready to talk about what that is. But let’s wait until we get there first.”

Thanks, VG24/7

The picture - the header of our Thief review from 1999 - may be a bit of a giveaway, but why not? It's Friday, after all. We can indulge in a little bit of misty-eyed nostalgia without fear of our bosses asking us why we're staring wistfully into space and making bow and arrow and mimicking guard-clubbing animations over and over again. That's the sort of freedom only the weekend can bring. Here's what we're planning to play between now and Monday, but what will you indulge in?

We like to live on the cutting edge here at PC Gamer, so this weekend Phil will be playing a bright new thing from Looking Glass called Thief: The Dark Project. Apparently it has these things called polygons and features lots of emergent crime and - wait - it's not 1998? Oh well, that's okay, Phil's planning to modernise it with the NewDark patch, which should help it run on his fancy pants modern computer box (it's not even beige!). He likes stealth. He likes crime, but he's never played the original Thief, so it should be an interesting education. Will cudgelling those broad, sharp-shouldered guards prove as interesting in a post-Dishonored/Deus Ex: Human Revolution world? We'll see.



Rich, meanwhile, is still playing Rogue Legacy from last week, but is also planning to dip back into Dota 2 to relax. Okay, maybe not relax. to hone his sense of focus in a highly competitive arena, which is Rich's equivalent of a summer break, really. Dota 2 fans can look forward to a proper release for Dota 2 in the coming month or so. The release itself is largely symbolic given the number of invites swimming around players' Steam inboxes, but it might come with a significant update and new heroes. Beyond that, there's The International 3. I'm determined to learn enough about Dota 2 before then to understand what is going on. I'd like to get in on the cheers and excitement triggered by plays like these:



I was lucky enough to review Saints Row: The Third, and liked it very much indeed, which is why I'm excited that Chris is going to give it a go this weekend. He's played the (very funny) opening hours, but there's so much yet to discover, the laser-shooting VTOL jets, that whole section set inside a computer, the bit with the tiger. After just a few hours, you have more toys than Batman, and the city is yours to boss. It's a riotous little power fantasy, elevated by a lust for silliness and a sense of abandon that, for some reason, reminds me of Dead Rising. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a penis bat in Dead Rising, though. FOR SHAME.



Graham will spend the weekend peering over a fine glass of port, listening to Tchaikovsky and calmly taking over the world with art in Civilization V: Brave New World. The second expansion, due out next week, adds new cultural victory conditions, and lets you use great artists in more interesting ways. If he doesn't come back to work in a top hat and start lecturing us on renaissance values then I will be surprised, and just a little bit disappointed.



Apparently it's going to be gloriously sunny here over the weekend, to which I say NO. I demand RAIN and TRENCH COATS. Evocative sci-fi adventure game Gemini Rue will answer the call, giving my mouse pointer control over the fate and actions of a hardboiled space-detective and an imprisoned amnesiac. Will our jump-suited captive regain his memories? Will our coated friend escape the clutches of the sinister Boryokudan? Will I ever master the fiddly cover-based gun combat system? Don't look at me, I'm only a few hours in. I might just stand in one of those beautifully drawn streets and listen to the rain for a while instead.



That's us, but how do you plan to escape the sunshine this weekend?

Children are a tricky subject for an often violent medium. They are evil, but society still seems invested in protecting them. Luckily we have Teacher Story: a free-to-play JRPG in which you beat up children with education, using a turn-based battle system to shoot knowledge and inspiring speeches into their uninterested heads.

Each pupil has a health bar that consists of stupidity and a shield of boredom. Every turn you pick from a randomly rolled set of skills, focusing your unbridled tutoring might on an individual student, table, or row of the classroom. Depending on the skill, you'll start to chip away at their boredom and stupidity, but only have a set number of turns to fully educate these young minds before the lesson ends.

Special events also occur throughout the lesson - everything from a snap question, which you can choose to take or not, to thrown objects and crippling sleepiness. And specific traits can have an effect on your resolve - cracked knuckles and a clicking pen will wear away at your composure.

It does cross the line into the slightly uncomfortable free-to-play systems popularised through Facebook gaming. Your piggy bank fills with fake money as you complete missions, but you have to spend it to skip the ridiculously long 6+ hour wait between missions. Need to use some resources during a mission and you might not have enough to afford those 50 virtual coins. In which case, you're stuck in the Escherian waiting room abyss:



Unless, that is, you pay some real cash pounds. While it's enjoyable, I'm not sure Teacher Story really justifies that sort of investment. Taken instead as a fun tactical battler that you check on every now and then, it's much easier to warm to its many charms.

You can play Teacher Story at teacher-story.com, surprisingly enough.