It’s quickly becoming A Thing in some circles that when you announce a sequel, you just throw the original at people for free. That’s definitely what Awesomenauts studio Ronimo are doing today. Alongside the announcement a PC launch (it’s been out on consoles for yonks) for silly side-scrolling strategy game Swords & Soldiers 2: Shawarmageddon, they’ve made the original Swords and Soldiers HD free to grab on Steam for the next 24 hours and keep forever. So go do that.

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Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is getting a new time-limited progression system where you level up a pass by playing the game, netting yourself rewards as you hang on a moment. Didn t I just write this? Though they re quite similar, there are some differences between the passes. Plunkbat s Event Pass , for instance, is way more insistent about getting you to drop cash on it. (more…)

I’ll admit to doing a bit of a double-take when I saw how much the Razer Naga Trinity goes for these days. 100 / $90? On your bike, lad. But then I realised the Naga Trinity isn’t really just a single mouse. With its trio of interchangeable side plates, this is three mice in one, giving you the option of two, seven or twelve extra buttons to use how you see fit, from classic desktop tasks to having every last MOBA and MMO command right there at your fingertips. It’s also, I might add, pretty damn comfy.

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A multiplayer game shutting down is always a sad thing. No matter how small the community behind it, there was> a community, and undoubtedly someone is going to lose their favourite game or – worse still – their favourite buddy online. As such, it brings a smile to my face to see that Mojang’s ill-fated CCG/Hex-based strategy hybrid Scrolls has officially relaunched, albeit under a different name. In order to distance itself from that whole legal kerfuffle, it’s now known as Caller’s Bane, and better still; it’s absolutely free, albeit partially fan-run now.

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When I published my Vampyr review (summary: choice is an illusion, apart from when it’s a roulette wheel; the dialogue’s stuffy but the fights are tight if you invest in them), I estimated that I was about two-thirds of the way through the game. With embargoes and deadlines out the way, I was curious to see how it all resolved, and particularly what, if any, pdark consequences would ultimately ripple outwards from the choices I had made. It’ll just take few hours, I reasoned. One more working day.

16 hours of increasingly maddening play later, I grimly watched the credits roll, my mind a whirl of relief, contempt and despair. If my post-review return to Vampyr had immediately collapsed into the combination of soporific lore and desperately ill-judged combat excess that did its final furlong, I wouldn’t have minded so much. What frustrated me was that this was preceded by a strong stretch wherein it finally became the game of agonising vampiric dilemmas that we’d hoped it would be from the start. So close to brilliance, and then this abrupt decay into absolute folly. (more…)

Kickstarter is always a risk, but so is X-Com. Even a 99% shot has a chance to miss, but you go for it anyway, and I’d say that Xenonauts 2 is in with a pretty dang good chance of being a solid squad tactics game. The fact that it’s halfway to its 50,000 funding goal within two hours of appearing on Kickstarter suggests that their audience agrees, and if you’re still not convinced, there’s a single-mission playable demo to poke around, hosted on GOG.

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The thing I thought I wanted most from The Long Dark proved to be the thing I wanted least. For the many years I’ve been returning to this truly brilliant and most brutal of survival sims, I so wanted them to deliver on the Story Mode the title screen would always promise. To have a narrative motivation to persist against the odds and the elements seemed perfect. Then Wintermute was released and “perfect” wasn’t exactly a word being bandied around.

So I know now that what I really want from The Long Dark is just more of it. And now there is! Along with tweaks and an overhaul to cooking, a whole new region has just been added in, called Hushed Valley River, and it’s absolutely savage. (more…)

Do you want to see more of Resident Evil 2 s floppy-haired Leon as he runs away from zombies? Of course you do. After a few years of waiting, Capcom s gory remake finally made the rounds at E3 this year, and gosh does it look flashy. This isn t a 20-year-old game with a fresh coat of paint, but rather a proper remake. Point your eyes at the new trailer, below. (more…)

The battle royales are breeding out of control, but I can at least admit the latest to be spawned is a fetching-looking beast. Islands of Nyne, due out this July from the interestingly named Define Human Studios is yet another last-man-standing FPS, but this time with a bit of a future-war edge, packed with fighters looking like they’ve just wandered in from Crysis. Judging by the trailer within, however, its sci-fi aspirations may only run skin deep. (more…)

Last month, Psyonix detailed some of its summer plans, including a rather beefy feature update expected to hit Rocket League in July or August. It s got progression in its crosshairs, and as well as changing levelling and XP, there s a whole new system designed to dole out rewards as you level up, keeping you in an infinite loop of leaping cars and explosive goals. Yesterday, the developer broke down exactly how the Rocket Pass is going to work.

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