“Pew pew!” goes the spaceship in new Star Wars Battlefront 2 [official site] viddies warping out of Gamescom, showing off the starfighting action in Dice’s boldly-going shooter. Spaceship battles were added to the previous Battlefront in a paid expansion but this time they’re free for everyone, which is grand. Starfighter Assault mode will pit teams against each other to complete (or block) multi-stage objectives, which I assume all revolve around blowing things up. The one EA are showing off now is the Battle of Fondor, so named because the Rebel Alliance was obsessed with fondling the door of an orbital shipyard. (more…)

The most recent two episodes of the Designer Notes podcast is well worth listening to if you’re interested in game development. In it, podcast creator (and Civilization IV designer) Soren Johnson interviews Steve Gaynor, co-founder of Fullbright Company and designer of Tacoma. Designer Notes is a podcast about “why we make games,” and typically charts a designer’s career, from the first game they played, to how they got started in the industry and how they ended up wherever they are now. In Steve Gaynor’s case, parts one and two cover early forays into level design, working on a FEAR expansion, joining the BioShock 2 team, designing Minerva’s Den, going indie to make Gone Home, and finally the challenges of making Tacoma. Check out the podcast’s archives for lots more, too – the Amy Hennig episodes are particularly great.

You might have heard that the lads-on-tour simulator Final Fantasy XV [official site] is coming to PC next year. But long before that announcement game director Hajime Tabata dreamt of the idea of including mod support in the then ethereal PC version. Well, that s now a solid plan. (more…)

Open-world racing game The Crew 2 [official site] will whoosh out on March 16th, 2018, Ubisoft announced today during Gamescom. The sequel will return to a miniature version of the USA, but this time with so many more vehicles. Along with the usual assortment of cars, it’ll pack planes, boats, and motorcycles from sports bikes to several actual Harley-Davidsons. I’m more a wanderer than a racer so getting to explore from new angles really appeals to me – especially the network of (semi-fictional) waterways which somehow span the entire country. For now, hey, look, it’s the game’s Gamescom trailer: (more…)

After jumping forward to the year 2205 and travelling off-world, Blue Byte’s city-building economy-o-strategy game is nipping back to Earth and the past once more. Ubisoft today announced Anno 1800 [official site], taking the historical strand slightly closer to the present. This time, industrialisation is in full fling and global empires are being built. Details are thin on the ground for now, this being one of many slim announcements hurled out at Gamescom, but Ubisoft do say Anno 1800 will launch in winter 2018 and share this announcement trailer: (more…)

Wushu martial arts, open-world adventure, mutations, mechanical augmentations, hot air balloons, crafting, and jet-skis come together in Biomutant [official site], a newly-announced action-RPG headed for a 2018 launch. It sounds wildly ambitious but looks pretty dang neat, with a cute lil furry fella scampering around and powering up in all sorts of ways. Sure, making a big gun is helpful, but so is growing a scorpion tail. Here, have a look at the cinematic announcement trailer, which doesn’t reveal much about the game but is quite pleasant. (more…)

Echo [official site] is a third person sci-fi action game which, as descriptions go… so far so doesn’t-tell-you-anything-interesting. But its big point of difference is that you are the enemy you are trying to beat. It’s an idea which, reading about it, reminded me of specific levels within other games – stuff like the Dark Link bit of Ocarina of time where you fight a shadow version of yourself which near-mirrors your moves. Echo extends that idea of you being your own difficulty cap and makes a whole game from it which sounds really cool. I hadn’t sat down to watch it in action before this full level video though. (more…)

When I get emails with the subject “Ghost Update” it is usually Alice pointing out something important from the latest issue of our favourite ghost magazine – the angel who was also potentially a surfer dude or the couple who kept having little arguments with each other and past life regression revealed that they had been a trapeze act where one had dropped the other one to their death meaning this life was a bit socially awkward for them.

Confusingly, Ghost Update is also the name of the latest Subnautica [official site] update – no passive-aggressive dead trapeze artists BUT there’s a spot of new content (POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING), more final plant art (!!!), a new biome called the Mesas, and… detailed models of poop? (more…)

After returning to Age of Empires II for an ‘HD’ re-release and several years of new expansions, reviving the long-dormant real-time strategy series, Microsoft have finally announced a brand new instalment. Age of Empires IV [official site] is in the works at Relic Entertainment, the folks best known for the Company of Heroes, Homeworld, and Dawn of War games. What a treat! And what a surprise.

Microsoft also revealed a release date for Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, the revamp of the first game. AND they confirmed that Definitive Editions of 2 and 3 will follow. Strat-o-rama! (more…)

HTC and Valve’s Vive cybergoggles today received a permanent price cut, taking the virtual reality headset from 759/$799 to 599/$599. Unlike the current 399 Rift sale, this is a permanent change. And it comes just in time for Rez Infinite, which our Alec has declared to be “the greatest VR game to date.” I myself am holding out for goggs with spring-loaded steel spikes over the temples so when I die in the game, I die in real life (which I understand to be a fundamental part of VR) but if you’ve simply been waiting for a lower price, voila. (more…)