In Other Waters is a little game about a xenobiologist named Ellery Vas exploring an alien sea, and finding it (unexpectedly) teeming with life. You don’t play the biologist, you play an artificial intelligence powering and controlling her advanced diving suit, but you are essential in helping Ellery to observe and classify these new species, to collect specimens, and to navigate the seabed. Despite what sound like similarities, In Other Waters is, as Nate pointed out, definitely not Subnautica.

It is really very good, though. It’s very meditative. Calming. It’s possibly exactly what you need right now.

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Fnatic may be better known as an esports company, but as their excellent Fnatic Streak keyboards have shown, they’re quite the dab hand at making top-notch gaming peripherals as well. The Streak and its compact tenkeyless miniStreak companion have been sitting atop my [cms-block] list ever since they came out, and their Flick 2 and Clutch 2 mice aren’t half bad either. Now, Fnatic are completing the set with their React gaming headset. Here’s wot I think.

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Almost everyone is stuck at home right now due the Covid-19 lockdown, and whether you’re working or gaming, your internet bandwidth is likely being soaked up a lot more than normal. Steam is one of the worst offenders when it comes to devouring bandwidth, often using a bit more than its fair share. So to help out with how much it’s using, Valve are rescheduling those pesky auto-updates for games you probably forgot you had, to free up some of that precious bandwidth at peak times. They’ve also given a handy reminder of a few options you can change yourself to further minimise your usage, too.

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Honestly, I’m glad Resident Evil 3 is a short game, because it was really, really, stressful to play. After six hours of it, I was thoroughly jangled, and just wanted a break from things trying to messily dismantle me. Which, to be fair, means it did exactly what I wanted it to do. Before my nerves tattered and I evolved into a Strategy Dad, you see, I used to love a bit of survival horror. So I knew what boxes RE3 needed to tick – and it left great bloody claw marks through all of them.

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Paladins, wizards, magic spells, unicorn motorbikes, and crafting are coming to Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds with the silly Fantasy Battle Royale event mode celebrating April Fools’ Day. Starting Wednesday, it’s Plunkbat, right, but with fantasy classes. What I most like is how all this is dressed as shoddy LARP gear: the Paladin in tinfoil greaves; the Barbarian wearing a Buster Bluth muscle suit; the Wizard in his dressing gown; the Ranger with two off-brand Pringles tubes as thigh-mounted quivers; the unicorn mount that’s a motorbike with a plush unicorn head strapped to the front. This live-action trailer is great too.

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Mount & Blade predates RPS. That’s how long we’ve been waiting for its sequel, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, which released yesterday afternoon.

I had hoped to have some basic impressions ready last night, but that wasn’t possible, because whatever else I can say about this open world medieval(ish) combat RPG, it’s completely overshadowed by technical problems. (more…)

Artifact‘s developers have given up on selling people cards. When the closed beta for Artifact 2.0 kicks off, you’ll have to earn every single card through playing – no market, no packs. Stingy pricing was just about the only thing holding the game back for me, so, hurray!

It’s part of a big relaunch. Valve have also mentioned some changes they’re making to the game itself, including allowing “players to access all three lanes at once”. That’s pretty wild, too.

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The Overwatch League casters, hosts and players alike are all holed up at home for the time being, with matches taking place online while the world waits for the Covid-19 pandemic to run its course. It seems like cabin fever is starting to set in though, as this week they’ve adopted a cat into the analyst’s panel to decide on the hero pools.

It went about as well as you can imagine.

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Wielding the almighty Heart-Seeking Bow, Coronacht, I weave with godlike alacrity between the attacks of my foes, line up the shot, release at just the right moment, and – pop! – they dissolve with a sigh back into the underworld from whence they came. I’m clearing out rooms in record-breaking time, and it’s a good thing too, because the infernal contract I signed with my father, Lord Hades, means if I spend too long in any particular region of the underworld then there will be swift and painful consequences.

And then I dash into another flame-filled area of Asphodel, and I’m halted in my tracks. Any notion of haste falls out of my mind. Because there is Eurydice in her chambers, singing her beautiful, haunting song. And, like every other time I’ve come across this particular room in Hades, I stay still and listen until the song is over before continuing in my quest to escape. I don’t want her to think I’m being rude, after all.

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The roguelike-like survival game Below was a bit more difficult when it came out than its moody, fog-filled trailers suggested, even to me who had been following it for multiple years. Capybara Games announced a while back that they’d heard community feedback and had decided to add a second mode to the game dubbed Explore Mode. Capy are giving PC players a chance to try out the new mode early by opting into a beta branch through Steam from today until next Tuesday, April 7.

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