Square Enix are but a fading spectre of their former glory. Square Enix can tie a crate of Final Fantasy trading cards to themselves and get in the sea. Square Enix are all horrible bastards who don t understand what makes a good RPG anymore. Never again will I have to say any of these clearly untrue and potentially libellous phrases, because Square Enix – who I ve always said were the best – have now confirmed that they re remastering Final Fantasy 8. Well heck.

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Game Dev Tycoon has given Nate happy memories of developing fictional games with perfectly plausible names (Wolf Strangler, Triumph of the Blood Lads). For me that joy was captured in Software Inc. In this tycoon game, you can spend a decade working on the most ambitious videogame ever conceived, only for it to become an astounding commercial failure.

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Among the sentences I least expected to write, “At E3, Nintendo just announced a PC-bound strategy-RPG based on Jim Henson’s cult ’80s fantasy muppetfest The Dark Crystal” ranks pretty high. The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance Tactics (I’ll just call it Dark Crystal Tactics, okay?) is based on the upcoming Netflix-produced prequel miniseries, and developed by BonusXP. It’ll be a single player, turn-based SRPG ala Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea, and expands on the conflict between the hobbity Gelflings and the vulture-like Skeksis. Below, a fittingly weird debut trailer.

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We’re headed back to that old cyberpunk future next year in Read Only Memories: Neurodiver, a sequel to 2015’s mystery game 2064: Read Only Memories. We’ll be digging into people’s memories as a telepathic detective with the aid of the eponymous weird critter, the neurodiver, searching for traces of a rogue psychic who’s been wrecking people’s minds in Neo-San Francisco. I’m game. I missed the first game but have heard good things, and cyberpunk psychic detectives are in my top-five types of detectives.

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Among the storm of announcements at E3’s PC Gaming Show, Cris Tales stood out because it’s a JRPG that looked and sounded like an interactive cartoon, with a clever time-travel twist. Perhaps developers Dreams Uncorporated and SYCK are aiming more at the Sailor Moon and She-Ra crowd than I, but even I can appreciate that Sailor Uranus will forever be the best. After playing the debut demo — available until June 24th — I’m glad to say that my first impressions were correct. It feels like I’ve just played the pilot episode of a TV series, and you should do the same. Grab it here on Steam, and see the trailer and some thoughts below.

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Enduringly popular 2D mine-and-crafter Terraria‘s next big patch has been teased for a while, and at E3’s PC Gaming Show yesterday, developers Re-Logic announced it will be its last. Formerly known as version 1.3.6, Journey’s End will be adding one last big round of features and content. There’ll be a variety of quality-of-life features, another 800 items to discover (or build), and the usual new bunch of bosses and monsters to hunt. There’s an expanded weather system, a golf mini-game, a brutal new difficulty level and an overhaul to how the game generates worlds. Below, the trailer.

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After several days of thomping basslines and screaming industry professionals in service of games that won’t be out until next year, tonight I am very much looking forward to a quiet drive through forested mountains. American Truck Simulator just launched its Washington expansion, adding another state to haul cargo through – a real pretty state at that. Sea! Mountains! Forests! Bridges! Logging roads! The Grand Coulee Dam! The Space Needle! Another city bearing the cursed name of Aberdeen! Places from Twin Peaks! Just me, the road, a riot grrrl playlist, and eighteen wheels of steel laden with logs that are already two hours late because I got distracted by a river and crashed into a tree.

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Studio Ghibli and Level-5’s JRPG Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch is the next console game of yesteryear to see a remastered PC release. Due September 20th, it seems that publisher Bandai Namco aren’t changing much from the PS3 original beyond a boost in resolution and frame rate. Not there’s much that needs changing, as the game’s real-time art was almost as pretty in motion as its gorgeous, traditionally animated cutscenes. Overly padded combat aside, it’s a lovely game, and Ghibli’s influence shines through in its heartwarming but oft-tragic fairytale story. Below, a trailer.

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Not only are Valve making a standalone version of mega-hit Dota 2 mod Dota Auto Chess, the mod’s creators yesterday announced they’re releasing a standalone Auto Chess on PC too. And this came mere hours after Riot Games announced an Auto Chess clone mode for League Of Legends. It’s rare to see a mod attempt to bloom into a full genre in real time.

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The Xbox Game Pass for PC is two things: firstly, it’s quite a mouthful; and secondly, it’s the new subscription service by Microsoft that gives you access to a bunch of games from the Microsoft Store for a monthly price. The service’s announcement during the Xbox portion of this year’s E3 turned a fair few heads, with some big name games like Metro Exodus, Forza Horizon 4, Imperator Rome, and many more being thrown around to give us a taste of why we might want to subscribe.

This here Xbox Game Pass guide has been thrown together so you can understand exactly what the service offers, how much it costs, the games that you’ll have access to once you join and in the future, and how to get started if you’re so inclined.

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