We’ve just got the hot scoop that our RPG of the year, Sorcery! [official site], is to receive a free update tomorrow, that adds in a whole new super-hard New Game Plus mode, along with a sprinkling of other extras.
Warning! There are plentiful spoilers ahead for all Dark Souls games.]>
You’ll meet his acolytes first giggling ogresses in matted, sagging corsets, their belts jingling with torture implements, and red-cloaked porters who shoulder cages full of chopped-up bone and flesh. Deep in Undead Settlement an area you’ll reach, in a portentous reversal of a key moment from the original Dark Souls, when two gargoyles carry you down the cliff from Lothric Castle you’ll find rooms hung with carcasses, neatly bundled up in sackcloth for transportation.
Beyond that there’s the Road of Sacrifices, with its mutant carrion birds and its lone madwoman in rags armed with a butcher’s cleaver, a road that takes you via the Crucifixion Woods to the grounds of a befouled cathedral. And then there are his rings, obtained from the colossal fusions of wolf and spider which haunt that cathedral magical artefacts that impart a little of the master’s terrible hunger to the wearer. Aldrich, Saint of the Deep. Aldrich the man-eater.
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero [official site], the crowdfunded fourth game in the platformer series starring a genie who can transform into animals, launched today. I’ve not paid much attention to the revamped re-releases of Shantae’s old handheld games I’d seen bouncing on PC but I’ll take Half-Genie Hero raising $776,084 on Kickstarter as a sign that many folks think the series is quite good and want more. Half-Genie Hero is the first in the series made for big screens so let’s have a gander in the launch trailer below. … [visit site to read more]
Astroneer [official site] is so lovely. It’s a really pretty game with this fondness of geometry and at the moment, in its early access phase, it’s forgiving enough that I can potter in my sleep-deprived state without getting confused. There are also ace caves to explore and weird plants and ribcages and hostile fungi to find. To explain what I’ve been up to in the last day or so I’ve made a video explaining some basics and showcasing my base! … [visit site to read more]
It seems only fitting that icy survival sandbox The Long Dark [official site] should launch its biggest update of the year two days before the solstice. Days round my way are now below seven hours and mercy me, I’m so excited to reach the longest dark and pass on through. The ‘Resolute Outfitter’ update has added a new world area, a desolate land of ice and dead trees, and hugely overhauled the game’s clothing. Every garment’s art has been redesigned and rebuilt, they way clothes work is hugely overhauled, and there’s a tidy paper doll to show what you’re wearing. Go on you scamps, wrap up warm then slip out in the night. … [visit site to read more]
We command you to open the next door in our calendar, Commander.
It’s 2016’s best strategy game, XCOM 2. … [visit site to read more]
Crytek is closing down five of its offices around the world after financial trouble has reportedly left many of its workers unpaid for months. Studios in Frankfurt and Kiev are staying open, the developers said in a classically verbose press release, but all other studios are being shut down, including offices in Seoul, Sofia, Shanghai, Istanbul and Budapest. “Management has put plans into action to secure jobs and to ensure a smooth transition and stable future,” said the notice. Translation: a large number of people are losing their jobs. … [visit site to read more]
I’d quite happily write and read about Dwarf Fortress and RimWorld [official site] all day long. There might even be time to play them every now and again as well, though I’ve become accustomed to enjoying them vicariously, reading about other peoples’ virtual lives and escapades. A new RimWorld update arrived today and it’s a big one, changing the way that worlds are built and operate at a fundamental level. Simply put (and nothing about RimWorld is actually simple), worlds are now modeled as spheres, and you can travel across them, nomad style. Or warband style. Your call. … [visit site to read more]
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>
As VR and its out-of-this-world experiences is to 2016, so to the 1990s were ridiculously overblown claims about toy-based artificial intelligence. We had Furbies chattering garbage at us from the windowsill, Tamagotchis starving to death inside schoolkids’ backpacks, Aibos tightening the thumbscrews on wealthy Japanese folks’ existential crises and we had Creatures games cluttering the dusty racks of supermarkets’ tiny games sections. … [visit site to read more]
A bard, a prophet, and a petty criminal walk into a tavern and they all become friends, each blissfully unaware that their two drinking pals are – just like them – undercover agents sent by rival factions to pump townsfolk for information. That’s the sort of delightful unscripted situation to expect from management sim/anecdote generator Dwarf Fortress [official site] as developers Bay 12 work on its agent system to support its artifact system to support its creation myth system to support its magic system. Dwarf Fortress! That’s an anecdote Bay 12 shared in a recent dev blog, by the way. … [visit site to read more]