I know a game is good when I write down a to-do list with pen and paper. Games are great for goal-setting, but they’re also great for goofing around and goalless, meaningful mindlessness. This is why I’m a big fan of roguelite games, which feel like endless loops of manageable tasks. Weirdly, the endlessness of them never really feels onerous. Instead of feeling frustrated with my failures, I view them as opportunities to try again. This is common rhetoric in games — they allow us to fail, iterate, and try again — but I rarely experience this feeling so acutely outside of roguelites, city sims, and resource management games. Rogulites comfort me in times of tumult! Worker placement soothes me! For the love of god, someone give me a farming sim to sink hours into!

Here are some games to get swept up in. May you find comfort.

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A deadly new disease is spreading its way across China and East Asia. With over 840 confirmed cases of the pneumonia-like Coronavirus confirmed this month, concerned players are looking for ways to cope with the threat of infection. Increasingly, they’re turning to Plague Inc: Evolved. Ndemic Creations’ outbreak management sim saw Steam player counts skyrocket in the last few days. Keen to avoid an outbreak of disinformation, Ndemic have warned against using their global sickness sim as a basis for real-world disease control.

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Happy Burns Night, gang! If poetry isn’t really your bag, hey, Tam o’ Shanter is about something we can all relate to: getting chased by witches on our way home from the pub.

What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!

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As reported by PennLive, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit has affirmed the district court’s decision that a Pennsylvania man was not discriminated against by being “muted” in an online game.

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Following up last year’s Age Of Empires II: Definitive Edition release, Xbox Game Studios are planning a beta period for the Age Of Empires III: Definitive Edition for registered Insiders. If you took part in Age 2’s beta sessions, the developers say they are structuring Age 3’s beta a bit differently. Sessions will be shorter and more focused, with multiplayer beta times beginning in February.

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As GDC‘s yearly survey of developers says in their report “unionisation and labor practices remain hot topics in the game industry.” The last several years have seen many reports of game developers being overworked that thing we call crunch to finish the biggest games each year. If not stories of crunch, it’s reports of major layoffs instead. No surprise then that talk of unionising continues to grow.

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Post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland Remastered – which just looks a Wasteland remake let’s be honest – has bagged itself a release date, so you’ll be able to get your hands on it on February 15th. InXile Entertainment s remaster was announced back in June 2018, and it’s essentially a big old re-do of everything from the original 1988 game, with all-new audio and graphics.

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None of us have enough games that we’ve bought and never played, right? Last year Epic contributed to my digital pile of still-wrapped games with their constant freebies. Weekly free games will continue through 2020, Epic said last week, so the stack shall grow higher. This week’s freebie is the puzzle game The Bridge. Next up to bat is Farming Simulator 19.

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“I should go check on the Frictional website,” I thought to myself when I woke up this morning. I’ll call it a premonition, though I clearly wasn’t the first to have it. If you hadn’t heard, Frictional Games, developers of Soma and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, recently updated their website nextfrictionalgame.com with a spooky pulsating little symbol. It morphed once already, and has morphed again, beginning a merry chase of YouTube videos and hints presumably related to Frictional’s next game.

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Last night the Apex Legends devs treated us to a stream to announce all the new things coming to the game’s fourth season. Amongst those announcements, we got our first glimpse at Apex’s next character, beefy wrestler Forge.

Except, Forge wasn’t who most Apex fans were expecting to see. Over the last few months, there have been easter eggs and teasers galore (not to mention some leaks and datamines) suggesting the edgy red Legend, Revenant, would be making a proper introduction to the games. At first glance it looks like he’s been left out, pushed back and forgotten about – but if you look a little deeper on EA’s website, it seems Revenant is still very much on the cards for Season 4.

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