A new cinematic trailer for Assassin’s Creed Origins [official site] is basically a Leonard Cohen music video, which is a fine thing to be. The big German games show Gamescom starts this week, which means the streets are running orange with trailers. If we’re to be shown all these things which don’t represent video games at all, hey, at least they’re letting us listen to Leonard Cohen. I just listened to Leonard Cohen for work purposes! I don’t remember much else. Pyramids and Cleopatra and Romans and some bloke with a cool hat and murders? And Leonard Cohen. (more…)

Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom was one of my favourite games of last year and certainly the biggest surprise. It did a wonderful job of capturing the movement and combat of the anime, which is about jetpack-propelled soldiers with swords and grapples hacking off the limbs of naked giants. Now Koei Tecmo have announced that a sequel is on the way. Attack On Titan 2 [official site] is coming early next year, and the trailer below suggests it’ll hew closely to the plot of the anime’s second season. (more…)

Prince Noctis and his anime boyband are indeed bringing their Final Fantasy XV [official site] road trip to PC, Square Enix have confirmed. I have been so very keen to scamper about with these rowdy boys who love camping, cooking, friendship, riding chickens, and fighting honking great monsters. Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition will come almost a year after the RPG’s initial release, in “early 2018”, but it should be the best edition. Improvements and additions that were patched into the console versions should be here from the start, for one. And of course technical improvements and PC prettybits are in too. See them in this new trailer: (more…)

The next theme park management game from Planet Coaster studio Frontier Developments will focus on something even scarier than a triple corkscrew: dinosaurs. Last night Frontier announced Jurassic World Evolution [official site], which will put us in charge of the cinematic theme park franchise that surely should have been sued into oblivion by now. We’ll get to build a park, bioengineer new dinosaurs, and watch everything go pear-shaped when they get bored. Remember to invite two plucky children, including at least one nerd, to help save the day. (more…)

The singleplayer side of Mass Effect: Andromeda [official site] is now officially as done as it’ll ever be, as BioWare have confirmed they have no plans for more singleplayer patches or any singleplayer DLC. Multiplayer additions and events will continue but Andromeda’s singleplayer is complete. Given that it was a disapointing new start for the sci-fi RPG series, that doomsaying rumours have circulated for months, and that the studio which made Andromeda has since subsumed into another studio, this isn’t much of a surprise. But as BioWare RPGs tend to receive a fair few story expansions, giving up on this isn’t a good omen for the prospect of another Mass Effect game. (more…)

Ancient Frontier [official site] is a hexy thing. It’s a space strategy game where you and your ships blast through other fleets to the backdrop of a story about warring factions and intergalactic intrigue. I’m a sucker for hex-based battlefields so I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out, and developers Fair Weather Studios are trying to let the story drive the game, with two campaigns that have fully-voiced dialogue. I don’t have long to wait as Fair Weather have confirmed a release date of September 21st.

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Early access survival game Conan Exiles [official site] added a new chilly region called the Frozen North this week. It brings with it new weather types including rain and snow, alongside a temperature system that will affect the whole game: you’ll have to wrap up warm in the new area and strip off in the game’s desserts.

There’s shiny weapons to swing at new beasts, including wolves, bears, frost giants and mammoths, fresh dungeons to crawl and new materials to find and cobble together into shelters and items. Plus, you can now summon an Avatar (Exile’s versions of embodied Gods) called Ymir: Lord of Storm and War, who is a giant frosty dude with a big beard, antler horns and a huge axe that can level whole towns.

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Sundays are for hanging out with your kid, taking them somewhere fun, and hoping they’ll play on their own for at least a few minutes while you browse on your phone. Quick, before he or she notices the phone in your hand – click these links to the week’s best games writing.

The lovely Rab Florence, our former Cardboard Children columnist, is launching a new tabletop game review show. It sounds very Rab: Cast The Bones is described as, “a Lovecraftian horror satire about a dead board game review.” I will definitely watch this. It’s currently up on Patreon and at the time of writing a little more than halfway towards its funding goal.

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The video game adaption of Steve Jackson Games’ wargame Ogre [official site], which is about battles between super-powered AI war machines rather than man-eating giants, is coming out on 5 October, developers Auroch Digital have announced.

I haven’t played the tabletop version, but a glance at the rules reference sheet tells me that one player controls a single, immensely powerful Ogre and the other tries to fend it off with armoured hovercraft, big tanks and infantry. The video game version expands that formula with multiple units on both sides taking part in turn-based strategic combat on a hexy battlefield. The Ogres are still as scary, mind (there’s one in the bottom right of the picture above).

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Chop a zombie’s head off with an axe, grab the skull and chuck it at one of his ghoulish friends, all using your own, real-life hands. That’s the kind of thing you can do in Killing Floor: Incursion [official site], which is out now and brings combat based on the excellent Killing Floor games to virtual reality. It’s exclusive to the Rift right now and requires the Oculus Touch to play, so there’s a big barrier to entry, but if you’re already kitted out then it could be a go-er.

The combat looks intense, and you can shoot through the hordes on your own or with a friend in co-op. The Touch gameplay means you can slash your knives in whatever direction and angle you want, or chuck a shotgun to a friend so they can blow the head off a zombie that’s getting too close. Plus, it looks bloody terrifying: the Killing Floor games weren’t exactly scary but being in VR means there’s no escape. Gulp.

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