Quantic Dream, the French studio that made Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy and is currently working on PlayStation exclusive Detroit: Become Human, has been accused of having an abusive work environment, according to reports in the French media. A joint investigation by Canard PC, Mediapart and Le Monde spoke to former employees who made accusations about the studio and its head honchos, David Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumi re, both of whom deny the allegations. (more…)

Sorry to frighten the more sensitive reader, but, goodness me, among the miserably common entries, this week’s chart welcomes a fair few newbies and indies! Are customers about to get better at buying? Or will we just see these games in the charts every week for the rest of the year? STAY TUNED! (more…)

The Japanese mega-franchise that is Touhou has had a good time on Steam lately, with the latest main game in the series debuting to massive sales and user-reviews to match, and the most recent spinoff fighting game making a splash despite its Japanese-language-only release.

What I wasn’t expecting was for commercial Touhou fangames> to make their presence known so soon. Available now on Steam from Chinese indie team MyACG Studio is The Disappearing Of Gensokyo, an action-RPG/twin-stick shooter hybrid starring the iconic cast of the shmup series. And it’s in (patchy) English, too.

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Sundays are for getting back in the saddle. And so after an extended Christmas break, the Sunday Papers returns with a roundup of the best writing about videogames from across the week (and beyond).

Game developer and founder of the studio who made Hand of Fate, Morgan Jaffit, wrote this past week about the cost of doing business. That cost is online abuse, which Jaffit argues has become normalised. It’s hard to disagree and I think a lot about how what we write here at RPS can better shape the discussion that surrounds videogames. (more…)

Somehow, the original release of Tiger Knight flew completely under my radar. I’d have expected the blend of historical Chinese warfare, familiar siege and mounted combat mechanics and massive-scale PvP warfare (7v7 matches, each player leading a regiment of up to 30 AI soldiers) would have caught my eye, but apparently not. I even missed the game shutting down last year.

Thankfully, 2018 is set to be a year of new beginnings, and Chinese publisher NetDragon Websoft have dusted the game off for a second, international-geared release via Steam. It’s a bit patchy, but might be worth a look, given its free-to-play nature.

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Space Invaders Extreme might be late to the party, but it still knows how to please a crowd. Originally released for the Nintendo DS back in 2008 and eventually updated and remixed on the Xbox 360, it puts a music-synced, beat-heavy spin on the shmup genre progenitor, and it’s coming to PC next month.

Shmup-loving publisher Degica are following up the release of Extreme with an oddball accompanying act; the PC debut of Groove Coaster, a one-button iOS and arcade rhythm game with trance-y visuals and a variety of bass-heavy remixes of Taito arcade classic tracks.

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Normally ‘coral’ and ‘highlands’ are mutually exclusive terms, but the lands of Monster Hunter: World have recently undergone a tectonic makeover, lifting sea-beds high up into the sky and forests down into the swampy mire. The Coral Highlands are one of the new biomes being introduced to the series by World, and they’re a sight to behold. Strange, pastel-shaded, vertically arranged and populated by some new and interesting monsters. Come take a peek with me as I rifle through the latest chunk of official gameplay footage released for the upcoming dragon-bothering simulator.

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What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on.

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It feels like public opinion on Destiny 2 plunged headlong off a cliff in the final two months of 2017. While fundamentally solid, the loot-heavy FPS’s brief first expansion left many dissatisfied, and controversies over XP-throttling and Bungie’s seeming obsession with pushing loot crates as the primary means of character customization left many with less-than-kind things to say about the game.

In an attempt to head the worst of the PR off at the pass, Bungie released a broad development road-map this week, detailing their plans for new content and reworking of existing systems from here until late 2018. I attempted to decipher some of it for those not already neck-deep in weird immortal space-knight lore.

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There was a time when virtual pets were all the rage, and of all virtual pets, Creatures were the most rewarding and> the most demanding. The artificial life sim series was the foamy crest of a wave that started with the Commodore 64’s Little Computer People in 1985 and leveled out around Nintendogs 20 years later.

Creatures is rarely mentioned anymore, but it hasn t been forgotten. A couple of months ago, the Creatures Community Spirit Festival (CCSF) brought together fans, many still working on mods, sprites, backgrounds and levels. We spoke to them and explored the new lives they’re creating, and the continuing legacy of this extraordinary game.

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