Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark may not be the greatest strategy RPG in the world (I’ve not played enough make that call), but developers 6 Eyes Studio have produced a fine tribute. Leaving early access today after an active year of tweaking, tuning and adding new missions, it’s a strategy RPG in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics, probably my favourite game in its genre. That means turn-based high-fantasy stabbery, looting and levelling, with a heavy focus on positioning, complex terrain and even more complex character builds. See the launch trailer below, or snag a demo here.

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It’s late to the party, but Starlink: The Battle For Atlas is out now on PC, Ubisoft’s open-world space shooter. Originally part of a Skylanders-style collectable-toys-as-games push by the studio, the little modular spaceships failed to fly off the shelves. Fortunately, Ubisoft have pivoted and relaunched the game today. Console folks get a big free expansion, and we get the shiniest, smoothest version of the game. Today’s PC release includes digital versions of most of the original set of toys baked in. Below, a launch trailer and some thoughts from (blasphemously) playing the Switch version.

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Last night, Memoirs Of Magic launched, a free, cute and bouncy old-school FPS by Strawberry Octopus Productions that I’ve been following on and off for years. Inspired by Doom and early 32-bit JRPGs, it’s a large, semi-non-linear FPS and RPG hybrid, like an adorable, squishy version of Hexen. There’s seven characters to play as solo or co-op, lots of monsters to zap, punch, clobber and loot, and a distinctive chunky, pre-rendered aesthetic backed up with some similarly old-school polygon bosses and summons. Check out the launch trailer below, and grab the game here on Itch.

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The official store page for the Valve Index is live now, featuring tech specs on the new VR headgear and controller combo, a June 28th launch date and a price-tag. If you’ve got no other VR equipment and this is your first set of space-goggles, it’ll set you back a cool 919/ 1079/$999. The full kit includes two tracking base-stations, the headset itself and a pair of their next-gen finger-tracking controllers, formerly known as Knuckles. There are cheaper options for people who already own HTC Vive or Vive Pro hardware, as the base stations and controllers are cross-compatible.

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It s got blood and you punch people. There, review over.

I sometimes wish this job was as straightforward as that. Mortal Kombat 11 is a biff em up of brutal strength and quick reflexes. It has a bin lorry s worth of microtransaction trash heaped on top of it, the PC version is lagging behind the console version as regards patches, and it was made at a studio recently criticised for its poor working conditions. There s also an excellent fighting game underneath all that. And knowing all this, I m supposed to tell you whether its worth spending your paypacket on it, so you can pester other humans with fireballs from the far end of a fighting pit. I m supposed to do that, from inside this laundry drum of hot takes and player anger. But all I can hear is my mother s old adage, whispering to me from across the years. Brendan, she said. There is no ethical konsumption under kapitalism.

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The true joy of being Ian Hitman is not just in the hitting of men, but in doing it properly, which is what makes Hitman 2‘s competitive Ghost Mode so compelling – it gives you an audience. Today, Io Interactive rolled out a big update to the competitive mode, letting players compete in Santa Fortuna. They’ve also added a bundle of new ghost-busting special items that allow you to disrupt your rival, making for some potentially comical Spy Vs Spy action. For those still focused on single-player mastery, they’ve also reworked the rules for earning those coveted Silent Assassin ratings.

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Fishing, story-driven adventures, a PvP arena mode, and other shiny newnesses today come to Sea Of Thieves in its Anniversary Update, which confusingly is coming thirteen-and-a-bit months after launch. While the multiplayer pirate sandbox initially seemed to be sinking without a trace because it had little to do, as our former Alec (RPS in peace) noted in his Sea Of Thieves review, Sea Of Thieves has experienced an unlikely renaissance in recent months. Today’s update sounds like it makes Sea Of Thieves more like the game Alec had hoped for.

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There are few people I find as fascinating as Mister Julian Assange, the debonair hacker and out-of-work Geralt cosplayer who hid inside an embassy for seven years, skateboarding into the ambassador s bedroom and demanding to know the new wi-fi password so often that they finally got annoyed and kicked him out.

Assange has the campy flare of a mid-tier Drag Race contestant, randomly appearing on his chic little balcony like he s Evita addressing his adoring public, except instead of Madonna it s Santa Claus from a Japanese horror film. One time, he popped out of his room waving a hundred-page United Nations ruling, like he was Michael Jackson and the document was an imperilled, dangling baby. He d clearly used Ecuador s inkjet to print it out too, tying up the only printer in the building for any diplomats who needed it for scanning in trade agreements and whatnot. He clutched that thick ream of purloined A4, still warm from the printer tray, like it belonged to him. And it was in full CMYK too, judging by the brilliant azure blue of the UN logo on the first page. There was a man who wasn t paying for his own printer cartridges. And for that reason, at least, he deserves to be in prison forever.

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I was unprepared for Sonic the Hedgehog to have human teeth. Seeing as chilli dogs are his favourite food yet he eats them without soaking the bun in milk, I suppose I knew that Sonic wouldn’t have the mouth and teeth of a real hedgehog in our world. I was still not ready for human teeth and weird lips. The first trailer for the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie (or Sonic the Hedgepig, as it’ll likely be named in the UK) has arrived, starring a CGI hedgepig voiced by Ben Schwartz (best known as Jean-Ralphio in Parks and Recreation) alongside human actors including Jim Carrey and James Marsden, and I just wasn’t ready for the teeth.

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On day eight we start the weekly ritual by clearing the former ritual objects, beginning again with the first of a new set. This time I start with a sprig of plant in a bottle. It makes a bright tinkling noise when Marty Burnham The Moon Witch picks it up. Marty seems tired again today, which means we’re back in sync, because I am knackered>. I fell asleep on the train to work listening to a podcast about bad books.

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