There’s been an awful lot of surprise announcements these past few days, but this one really caught me off guard. We’ve known for a while that Square Enix are aiming at a broader market than ever before, but the last thing I expected was a fully localised remake of Square’s oddly capitalised Romancing SaGa 2 coming to PC, 24 years after its original Japanese-only launch on the Super Nintendo. Even more surprisingly, it’s just on the horizon, due out next Friday, December 15th.

Baffled? Step inside for a nice cup of tea, a trailer for the PC version and a little more explanation as to what the Romancing SaGa 2 brings to the table.

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Adding a second screen to your PC can bring several benefits, whether it’s giving you more space to work or, for the YouTube and Twitch crowd, the ability to read web pages while you game. Finding room in your budget for one, however, is often much harder, especially if you’ve already spent a lot on your first monitor. Enter the AOC E2470SWH.

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One of the more interesting facets of Grand Theft Auto Online‘s evolution has been a gradual loss of restraint. While the non-story updates have been pretty wacky all round (the most recent patch added the genre-blending Transform races to the in-game track editor), the past few major world-building modules have brought all manner of military-spec hardware to the table in character-led missions, along with a few sci-fi weapons systems for flavour.

It feels like all of that is coming to a head soon with the release of the upcoming Doomsday Heist update for GTA V’s multiplayer module. Read on to see just how your crew might just be saving the world in the bombastic announcement trailer.

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No obstacles can stand in your way as you seek the glories of door number nine.

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Times are changing and old boundaries are coming down. It’s easy to see, thanks to the likes of the Touhou series – once nearly unobtainable outside of Japanese import services – seeing massive worldwide success on Steam.

One of the biggest spinoffs of the Japanese indie mega-franchise (which we explained the appeal of a bit here) is the fighting games, co-developed by Twilight Frontier. The very latest, Antinomy of Common Flowers (officially the 15.5th game in the mainline series), is set for its physical debut at massive indie expo Comiket in just two weeks, with a global Steam launch two weeks later.

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Alice, your usual host, is away this week. The last I saw of her she was bricking up her chimney and muttering something about defensive perimeters. I’m sure it’ll all be fine.

My Christmas preparations mostly involve a slight injection of colour into my wardrobe and a desire for all things cinnamon and ginger. I also spend quite a bit of time making sure the RPS Advent Calendar is fully stocked with lovely treats. But is there still time for games, I hear you ask? Of course there is.

What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what’s occupying our screens.

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Fighting game fans looking for something a little stranger than usual to fill out their library are in for a treat today. Based on the popular Umineko: When They Cry visual novels (which are also available on Steam), Golden Fantasia transplants the cast from their regular, dreary lives as metatextual murder-mystery characters into a no-holds-barred 2v2 tag-team brawl.

While the very first edition of this game came out all the way back in December 2010, this is the officially localised, polished and finalised version of the Cross release, a major expansion which bumped up the size of the playable cast to a respectable 19.

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I’ve been meaning to sink some proper time and energy into Subnautica, Unknown Worlds’ game of submarine exploration and underwater survival, but looking at the latest update suggests I might be best waiting until I get my shiny new PC. That’s because the Eye Candy update makes the game (visually) better, down where it’s wetter. Rub your eyeballs all over the update trailer within or take a peek at the full update notes here.

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It s snowing outside my window, but on my screen all I see is sand. I m one of 5 remaining players, and the circle of safety is much larger than it usually is by the time a round reaches this point. I can hear a sniping war going on to my right and since I ll have to run across the rocky expanse in front of me soon anyway, I choose that moment to make a break for it.

Of course, I get shot down the moment I start running. I m playing on the new desert map in Playererunknown s Battlegrounds and this is still the same old Plunkbat – only now there are no bushes for me to cower in.

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Videogames were a presence throughout my childhood, thanks to my dad having a PC for work. When he didn t need to use it, I was allowed to tinker and explore. The games built into the computer like Solitaire, SkiFree and Fuji Golf, as well as the CD-ROM games we got from stores like Office Max and Borders, quickly became second nature to me.

Now, looking back at publications and exhibitions intended to showcase gaming history I realize that some of my own experiences are often missing. While many influential PC games are well known and we can trace their influence on videogames today, there are more blind spots when it comes to the CD-ROM boom of the mid-90s. These games were built for an audience that was familiar with PC software but perhaps not with games, and even in their own time they ignored the conventions of game design. This led to types of experimentation videogames of today can still learn from.

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