The doughy and wonderfully unpleasant horrors of Little Nightmares will return next year in a sequel, Bandai Namco announced today. Little Nightmares II will send us out into the wider world as another spooky wee kid, this time a lad with a paper bag on our head, and our yellow-coated pal from the first game is coming along. She’ll be an AI-controlled friend keeping us company on our puzzle-platforming adventure, sadly not a chum for cooperative multiplayer. Though I’m not sure my usual co-op pals would be much use when we’re shouting “WHAT IS THIS AWFUL DOUGH-CHEESE-MEAT-MELT PERSON?” anyway. Anyway! Meet some of the new horrors in the announcement trailer.

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Amplitude Studios, as far as I’m concerned, created the greatest 4X game we’ve yet seen in Endless Legend; but they’re looking to outdo themselves in historic fashion with their latest endeavour, Humankind. This brand new 4X turn-based strategy title was unveiled during Sega’s section of this year’s Gamescom – and oh boy, does it look pretty>.

But it’s not just looks that Amplitude are hoping to win out on with Humankind. We’ll go over everything we know about Humankind below, from release date information to our first glimpses of gameplay in trailers and screenshots, and what we can glean about how everything will work when it’s released.

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On the night of Friday 30th August, at PAX West in Seattle, RPS will raise the dead. Using techniques too dreadful to comprehend, we shall puncture the mortal veil like a sheet of wet tissue paper, and drag something back from the other side. That spirit will be Ghoastus, the Roman Ghost: our first fully spectral staff writer, and the site s occasional historical strategy correspondent. He s erudite, he s wise, and he s in no way a person draped in a sheet and a replica centurion s helmet.

Ghoastus will be interviewing a panel of strategy gaming s leading lights: Ed Beach, lead designer for Civilization VI; Adam Isgreen, creative director for the Age of Empires series; Peter Nicholson, content designer for Imperator: Rome; Jeff Spock, narrative director of Amplitude’s just-announced historical 4X Humankind; and Nicholas Tannahill from Stronghold developers Firefly. From within his circle of chalked wards, Ghoastus will ask them how they mix reality with fiction when making historical games, and how they ve kept well-loved franchises fresh over the years.

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In their ongoing mission to capitalise on memories of PC gaming 1992-2006, THQ Nordic have announced a new Comanche game. The publishers say this is “based on” Novalogic’s Comanche sim series from the 90s, though the only similarity seems to be having helicopters. THQ Nordic say this here new Comanche is a “modern, team-based online multiplayer helicopter shooter” where players will also fly wee drones fighting each other. Okay. That’s fine and all but this does sound far enough beyond the original concept that using the Comanche name might mostly remind people of what the game is not. Weird.

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Dwarf Fortress might be the most interesting game ever made. It might even be the best. But it s certainly not the most accessible. It looks weird, its control scheme appears to be lifted from some sort of alien church organ, and a good proportion of its features are in fact collisions between the many, many bugs that have sprung up in its thirteen-year development history. There s a more user-friendly version of the game coming to Steam at some point, but with its release date listed as time is subjective , that might not be imminent.

But even if you re not keen to jump into the game as it stands, don t worry. The secret of Dwarf Fortress is that it s actually a weird story generator disguised as a management game, so games are just as fun to read about, as they are to play. And luckily for you, I ve been chronicling one such game since the start of the year. It s an epic tale of obsession, hubris and eagle intestines, and given that it s just finished its first 23-episode season (so I can go and meet the game s creator on stage at PAX West), now s the perfect time to read the story so far. You ll find every chapter linked below.

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Following the sci-fi 4X strategy of Endless Space and fantasy 4X of Endless Legend, the next strategy game from Amplitude Studios has an even stranger setting: human history. They’ve just announced Humankind, a 4X strategy game which I will crudely describe as “sounding like Amplitude’s take on Civilization.” By which I mean it’s a turn-based 4X strategy game where galleons can be sailing around at the same time as submarines and all that. I’ve long wished for a contender to strut menacingly around Civ’s turf and I’m doubly keen to see what Amplitude will do there. Here, watch the announcement trailer below.

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A sequel is coming for silly-yet-serious space build-o-exploration sim Kerbal Space Program. Blasting off next year, Kerbal Space Program 2 will add fancy and far-flung features including interstellar travel, space colonies, and official multiplayer support. This announcement seemed sudden to me until I remembered that the first game officially left early access in 2015. Four years ago! Goodness me. Come watch the sequel’s announcement trailer below.

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Google held another one of their Stadia Connect conferences today, and this one was meant to be all about what games you’ll be playing in the “scary” cloud come November. Sure enough, there were new Stadia games aplenty announced this evening, with the biggest addition being Cyberpunk 2077.

To help keep track of them all, here’s a list of every Google Stadia game confirmed so far, as well as which games are coming at launch, which ones will be arriving a little bit later, and which games you’ll only be able to play by subscribing to one of the special Stadia publisher subscriptions.

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Tomorrow sees the start of Gamescom 2019, the German public games show that’s usually a little more low-key and less marketing-y than E3. We’ve sent some of the gang out there (including two of our most precious resource, Alices) to play and chat and report back, but a wee taster is coming tonight. Gamescom’s organisers have drafted Geoff Keighley (the fella behind the ghastly Game Awards) to host Opening Night Live, a livestreamed show with devchat, videos, and the promise of “world premiere content.” Look, it’ll likely show some cool stuff and have a few cheeky announcements. The stream starts at 7pm, so come on in.

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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. New games are being added each month, and we’ve got details of all the Xbox Game Pass games in August 2019, as well as the full Xbox Game Pass game list for PC.

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