TESO‘s single player was a little underwhelming when I played it at Gamescom. Sure, it looked> like Skyrim, but I suspect that’s probably the wrong message to be sending. My feeling is that TESO needs to be its own game, and by mimicking Skyrim it’s sleepwalking into trouble. Rather than attempting to trade on Skyrim’s success, it needs to be setting out its own stall to the MMO crowd, and doing so on its own. One area it might do this is in PvP, which is increasingly sounding like the most interesting area of the project. In a recent Q&A the team have started going into some details, and they sounds like My Sort Of Thing.

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There are a contingent of RPS readers who hate it when we say “foot-to-ball”. Quite why foot-to-ball is a problem for these foot-to-ball-hating people is hard to fathom. I mean, the sport’s called foot-to-ball, and always has been called foot-to-ball, ever since foot-to-ball was invented by Geoffrey Foot-To-Ball in 1986. Some people just like to complain, I guess. Anyhow, you can now get your hands on the demo version of FIFA Foot-To-Ball 14, if you’ll only install Origin.

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Ubisoft’s surprise World War I action puzzler Valiant Hearts: The Great War is looking marvelous. Developed by some of the best and brightest minds behind Rayman Legends and Beyond Good and Evil, the frank yet humorous take on the horrors of war focuses on five characters, each of whom cross paths with one another and also a day-saving, heart-melting Red Cross puppy. The tale isn’t biographical per se, but it’s absolutely rooted in reality, with many scenarios writ large by history’s mighty quill – and also small by pens on actual postcards from the time, given to producer/audio director Yoan Fanise by his grandmother. His great grandfather fought, and Valiant Hearts is in part an attempt to honor that service. I recently sat down with Fanise, and he showed me the individual postcards that inspired the game and told me precisely where fiction meets reality. >

And OK, yeah, we also talked about the dog.>

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As I wade through the acres of lovely roguelikes that are so splendidly birthing from the gaming pods, my awful half-empty heart can’t stop itself from asking one question: but what about all the metroidvanias? Why aren’t we being overwhelmed by those, too? So thank goodness for Frank Washburn, who has thrown his Harmonix uniform into the laundry basket and donned the casualwear of an indie developer – Suppressive Fire Games. They’re bringing us Blood Alloy.

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BioWare’s finally taken the wraps off Dragon Age: Inquisition, and hey, it looks like it might actually be worth getting excited over. Far from the chaffingly cramped confines of Dragon Age II’s Kirkwall, Inquisition seems rife for roaming – a land that will whet your appetite for exploration and then stuff your intestines with intrigue until you have no choice but to physically ingest a Call of Duty game to correct the balance. Also, combat looks interesting again! There is tactical view. And rolling. Somewhat astonished, I sat down with lead designer Mike Laidlaw to discuss the resurgent role-player’s newfound confidence in tactical combat, wide-open exploration, and choices that actually bar players from a significant portion of the game.>

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Klei only removed the cloak of shadows (but thankfully not the trench coat; that would be weird) from espionage XCOM-ish strategy Incognita a couple months ago, but you can already play it. As in, right this very second>. Following in the footsteps of endlessly bizarre survivalist megahit Don’t Starve, a paid alpha was in the cards from the get-go, but it’s still a pleasant surprise to see it on these rainslick, cybertronic streets so soon. What is Incognita’s alpha hiding? Tread lightly and you might just be able to sneak up behind a trailer and some impressions after the break.

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Night Dive, the people who managed to retrieve System Shock 2 from the abyss and release it once more, are back. And this time they’ve brought Wizardry VI, VII and 8 with them. All three are now on Steam, in working-on-a-modern-PC-versions. It’s time to party.

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Everyone, calm down. It’s OK. Tom Clancy’s ENDWAR– ahem, Endwar (which is the one game I actually wish> its creators would refer to entirely in caps) isn’t dead. I know you were all terribly worried, but you can breathe easily now. Use both lungs instead of just one. Stop shoving entire wine corks up your nostrils. As it turns out, Endwar’s war to end all wars did not, in fact, end war, so Endwar Online will pick up its warring right where Endwar ended. There is, however, a twist: the new game under Endwar’s shell-shocked umbrella isn’t really an RTS. If anything, I’d say it’s closer to a fusion of MOBA-style roles/progression and tower defense mechanics. Also, the whole thing’s browser-based, and the goal is for matches to last roughly three minutes a piece. Witness the beginning of the end(war) in trailer form after the break.

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Eldritch just> got announced by former BioShock 2/Borderlands developers David and Kyle Pittman, but it’s already rocketed to the top of my list of Exciting Doodads That I Will (Lovingly) Obliterate With My Excitement Lasers. The headline does not lie. The roguelike-like counts games like Thief and Dishonored among its closest inspirations, bringing them together in a clammy, tentacle-slathered Lovecraftian embrace. In short, you can fight, sure, but you can also stealth past enemies, upgrade otherworldly powers, and climb around the environment to discover alternate paths through the harrowing infini-dungeon. Oh Eldritch, let me count the ways. Wait, I already did. You should probably just watch the (refreshingly silly) trailer, then.

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When games go deep-sea diving, you can usually count me out. Controls get clunky, cameras go haywire, and fish simply do not understand the etiquette of fair, gentlemanly combat. The short version? When a game’s setting hits rock bottom, my happiness level typically goes right down there with it. FarSky, however, is a rare exception. Well, kind of. It’s still a bit awkward to control, but that’s part of the charm. Sometimes. You’re a suit-bound diver whose underwater vessel has lost some rather important bits, so you’ve got to reassemble your achy breaky craft and just, well, survive. Good luck with both, however, as crushing depths are not kind to the easily popped jelly balloons we call bodies, and you’ll have to contend with increasing water pressure, decreasing temperature, and more survival factors (in addition to sharks, giant monster wheel things, and extremely mean> jellyfish) along the way.

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