Archaeology might be coming of age. There was a time when the hunt for relics and the raiding of tombs and other forgotten places necessitated a thousand explosions and firefights. The Crofts, Joneses and Drakes of the world perform a very noisy kind of historical research and recovery. In The Valley of the Gods, the next game from Firewatch creators Campo Santo, looks like it’ll bring a quieter mode of exploration and excavation. You play as one member of a two-person team investigating a remote valley in Egypt, documenting the mysteries you uncover as you explore. Take out your shovels and unearth the first trailer. It’s right here.

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I’m glad there are no monsters in The Long Dark. It’s my favourite survival game and even though I’ve often found myself wishing there were a ghost in the attic of my latest shelter, or an enormous shape blotting out the stars and moon, I’m not really keen on Lovecraftian tentacles creeping into every corner of my life. An eternal winter and angry wolves provide enough threat and fear to keep me on my frostbitten toes.

Fade To Silence, just announced by THQ Nordic, brings some eldritch horrors into a world of snowy survival and you can get a first look at it below ahead of its Early Access launch next week.

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This week s Premature Evaluation dumps Fraser in Dustwind s isometric wasteland, forced to murder other players in grisly real-time tactical brawls. Also it has dogs. >

I’ll admit it — I decided to take Dustwind for a spin primarily because of one line on the Steam store page: Play as a dog. In post-apocalyptic battle arenas that evoke Fallout and Wasteland, no less. And we re not talking about your run-of-the-mill, hangs out in dog parks defecating everywhere kind of dog. No, Dustwind s pooches are battle-hardened terrors, capable of covering the battlefield in mines or manning a vehicle s turret. How could I say no? How could it go wrong?

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Let us podcast, lest we forget. The squad of the Electronic Wireless Show chat about some of the most overlooked and underappreciated games of this year. Katharine thinks head-in-a-sack trip to the underworld Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice might qualify, while Adam praises the unsettling tales of Stories Untold. Brendan just wants more people to slap in skinny-person biffing game Absolver. But we’ve also been playing some other good ‘uns, including the magical realist family chronicle What Remains of Edith Finch and naval tactical battler Mare Nostrvm. (more…)

I’ve spent a lot more with American Truck Simulator than I have with its by-now much larger predecessor Euro Truck Simulator 2, mostly because a more distant land seemed more romantic than one I am already part of. But ATS, in its current South-Westerly configuration, is a game with a heavy reliance on rock and sand landscapes – evocative for sure, but while we await a hoped-for move to greener states such as Oregon, ETS2 is there to fill the verdant gap. This Mediterranean allure of this week’s massively-expanded Italy DLC proved especially irresistible.

Three things: 1) it’s remarkable how different ETS2 feels from ATS, despite broadly being the same game 2) Italia is the prettiest Truck Sim module yet 3) even so, the Truck Sim games now badly need a big visual overhaul. (more…)

The trailer for Humanity is 75 seconds long. In that time, I decided it was the best and most beautiful thing I’d seen for months, then figured it might not be for me at all, and finally realised that it was going to make me very sad and a little bit scared. I just watched it again and even though I’m sort of convinced it’s trying to trick me into engaging with a puzzle game, I definitely want to play it right now, whatever it might be. Take a look.

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I know! Another sequel to a ludicrously long-running and successful game franchise! What surprises this life holds.

Unfortunately, “a new Tomb Raider” is quite literally all publisher Square Enix are saying right now, outside of promising we’ll hear more soon. Still, it’s nice to have forgone conclusions confirmed, innit? (more…)

Three of Capcom’s Devil May Cries are getting a treatment from Nurse Definition, in fact – 2001’s first game, 2003’s somewhat disliked Devil May Cry 2, and 2006’s special edition of Devil May Cry 3. I.e., the first of four hacky-slashy games to star the original, silver-haired, which way to to the Final Fantasy VII cosplay contest Dante, as opposed to the shorter- and darker-haired finger-flipping version from Hellblade studio Team Ninja’s 2013 DmC. They’re getting high-def and sixty frames treatment in a $30 triple-pack next May.

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Hurry hurry hurry (or, y’know, watch the archived stream a bit later) – Ubisoft are just about to show off the much-anticipated, much-delayed sequel Beyond Good and Evil 2. Michael Ancel and colleagues are live on Twitch, talking more about – and most importantly showing more – BGE2, a game that finally stepped out of the shadows in this Summer’s E3.

Swearing, space pirates, online gubbins and prequel timeframes have raised a few eyebrows previously – will this bring ’em back down to earth or send ’em further skywards? Find out below. (more…)

There’s a gaggle of Christmas carolers gathered around this door. What has drawn them here?

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