Day five of the RPS Advent Calendar is much more relaxed than yesterday’s. You can hear people chatting on the other side of the door. Maybe you should sit down and listen to the wind in the leaves for a while.

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I can t help but love Halo. It s one of the few things that lodged firmly enough in my teenage heart to build itself a permanent nest there, and it still comes and goes freely, even though the iron gate of age has barred so much else from getting in. Ever since 2001, when I saved to buy an OG Xbox purely for the sake of playing Combat Evolved, I ve gotten needlessly excited about playing each new release on launch day. I was also the guy Nate wrote this article about.

Over the last eighteen years, we ve slugged through pretty much every new release in the series together, and they ve burned a string of happy little plasma scars on my brain, each one a memorial anchor for a whole period of my life. A decision to join the army in my early twenties saw me playing Halo 3 in drafty barracks in Wales, about to be sent to Afghanistan. Despite feeling incredibly removed from normal life, just a few bars of the theme, or the familiar clatter of the battle rifle, would instantly transport me back to a sort of home.

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You! Are the Crystal Gems! You’ll always save the day! And if you think you can’t, you’ll have to stump up 10.40 for one of the Steven Universe characters Brawlhalla just added. Last night’s update to the platform fighting game also introduced a new mode where you punch the opposing team to trap them in bubbles, as is Steven’s wont.

I haven’t played much Brawlhalla because I can’t get my fingers to understand I’m not playing Smash, but it’s a neat, free, PC-based alternative. It’s done plenty of crossover nonsense in the past, but Adventure Time means little to me while Steven Universe is a cartoon that’s close to my heart.

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“Toblo!”, cheers the peppy American woman every time you go back to the menu screen. Toblo!

Toblo.

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Dragon Quest Builders 2 has a free “jumbo demo” that you can play right now before it launches on PC next week. The first Minecraft-y spinoff from the JRPG series Dragon Quest never made it off consoles so it’s nice that we get a small taste of the sequel to see what it’s about.

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Nordic action-RPG Rune 2 released on November 12th. The next day, its developers Human Head Studios announced their closure and that all of its development team were offered new positions at a new studio with Bethesda. Apparently they failed to mention this crucial detail to Rune 2’s publisher. Now Ragnarok Game are suing Human Head to regain control of the game’s source code and assets.

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With Destiny 2 now in the final week of its Season Of The Undying, Bungie have shared a look at the what’s next: a return to Mercury in the Season Of Dawn. The Cabal have big plans to rewrite history while our old pal Osiris has been fiddling with Vex tech to save legendary Titan hardarse Saint-14. Along with picking up story strands, the season will introduce a new six-player matchmade activity to replace the outgoing Vex Offensive, and Bungie showed a bit today in a livestream.

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Frog Detective 2 has a release date now. A very soon one, as well. The second in what’s now a series of frog-led investigation games is coming to Steam next Monday, December 9th. This time, the amphibious detective is looking for an (allegedly) invisible wizard.

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Big changes are coming to car football today. Rocket League has replaced its lock and key lootbox system with an item shop and blueprints for items. The new system is still random, but takes away the risk that you’ll spend any actual money on an item you don’t want.

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When John left RPS, I wrote in his goodbye post that it was his reviews that I’d miss most. It’s a good thing for me personally, then, that John has just launched a new website. Buried Treasure is a blog on which John reviews “undiscovered indie gaming gems”, and there’s a Patreon where you can help it carry on.

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