Two years after Dragon Quest XI: Echoes Of An Elusive Age hit PC, a new edition is coming round with additions including new quests and the option to play this 3D JRPG as a retro-styled 16-bit 2D game. Pleasingly daft, that. Bearing the triple-barrelled name Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes Of An Elusive Age – Definitive Edition, this new version debuted on Nintendo Switch in September 2019, and will be coming to PC on December 4th.

(more…)

Dear reader, do you know of The Gunk? Have you touched the gunk? Tasted the gunk? Sucked up the gunk into your palm-sized vacuum cleaner? Of course you haven’t – The Gunk was only just announced, taking a spot in today’s Xbox Games Showcase. Coming next year from Steamworld Heist / Quest / Dig, The Gunk is a sci-fi survival platform that’s positively covered in slime.

(more…)

While I’m still not convinced that getting pally with the forces of Darkness in Destiny 2 won’t cause a second collapse of human civilisation, it does look great fun. A new trailer for the Beyond Light expansion shows some of the ‘Stasis’ abilities we’ll somehow get from those presumed wrong’uns, and I was expecting to freeze enemies but I was not expecting to erect ice walls or throw ice platforms we can climb up. I think Stasis might even let us get a magic wand? Alright, Darkness, make your offer.

(more…)

Phantasy Star Online 2

‘s getting on a bit, isn’t it? Sega’s big ol’ sci-fi MMO might’ve only officially come to the West this Spring, but it’s been big in Japan for the better part of a decade – and boy, does it show. Announced during today’s Xbox Games Showcase, New Genesis is preparing to change all that with a massive overhaul to the MMOs visuals.

(more…)

The trippy neon block-dropper, Tetris Effect has announced plans to add multiplayer in a new edition named Tetris Effect: Connected. There are loads of new modes on the way for players to challenge their friends in local and online co-op – there are even ranked matches if you feel like competitive Tetris is something you’d like to try your hand at. While the devs do plan to release multiplayer as a free update for all versions, initially it’ll be limited to the Connected edition when it debuts on Xbox and the Windows Microsoft Store later this year. Players on Epic and Oculus will need to wait until summer 2021.

Here’s Connected’s lovely trailer that really pulls on those “everyone is stuck at home, let’s play video games together” heartstrings:

(more…)

For the past two years, I have confused the name Outer Wilds with The Outer Worlds. I will say one space game’s name when I mean the other. I will expand one name into ‘The Outer Wilds’ and trim the other to ‘Outer Worlds’. I will trip and combined the two into ‘Outer Woilds’. I hate this. AND NOW, Outer Wilds writer Kelsey Beachum has declared she wrote for the newly-announced The Outer Worlds DLC, Peril On Gorgon. This is too much.

(more…)

Microsoft have announced As Dusk Falls, an interactive narrative game about two families that cross paths multiple times over some pretty dramatic and emotional circumstances. It’s the debut game from Interior/Night, a studio founded by Caroline Marchal, former lead game designer at Quantic Dream on games like Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. The studio’s goal is “to tell relatable, inclusive stories, grounded in real life”, and from the sounds of things they’ll be tackling some pretty tough themes about overcoming your past and moving on.

(more…)

So, as of this evening’s Xbox Games Showcase, we’ve finally seen footage of Halo Infinite, and it looks good! There was indeed a grappling hook, more mobility in general from the Chief (he can climb on boxes now!), and a couple of new guns. There was also some classic Warthog action, some dependably stirring music, and a couple of genuinely sublime moments of looking-out-across-a-halo-at-sunset beauty.

Despite lots of talk about Infinite being the first truly open-world Halo, I didn’t see enough to make a call either way – an HUD map showed some kind of open area, but it looked like it might have been broken up into several large arenas, rather than being properly free-roam. We’ll see. And indeed, I’ll have more to say tomorrow, after I’ve spoken with the developers. But for now, I want to talk about the best bit of the Infinite demo, which was the horrifyingly intense space gorilla ASMR video it ended on.

(more…)

I had looked away from the Xbox Games Showcase for a mere couple of minutes when the new Psychonauts 2 trailer dropped, so you may understand my surprise when I started hearing Jack Black’s voice blaring through my headphones. That’s right, Double Fine’s sequel to the bizarre brain-exploring platformer will feature songs performed by the School Of Rock teacher himself.

Here’s that trailer with the, admittedly, pretty cool song he’s done for it:

(more…)

They’ve gone and done it, team. Warhammer: Vermintide 2 developers Fatshark went and put their rat-smasher in space, announcing Warhammer 40,000: Darktide at today’s Xbox Games Showcase. Frankly, it’s about damn time someone made a rock-solid FPS in the 41st Millenium – and who better than the folks who turned a stodgy old fantasy wargame into a stellar Left 4 Dead successor?

(more…)