A Monster's Expedition - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Jay Castello)

A screenshot of the monster from A Monster's Expedition looking at a model of a reverse mermaid, exhibited behind red museum rope. It has a fish head and torso, and human legs.

I think that I owe myself an apology. I have always thought that I was no good at these sorts of spatially-based push-em-up puzzles. But A Monster’s Expedition, which is entirely made up of them, has challenged that assumption purely through the power of great teaching. It’s all well and good when these brainteasers are tossed context-free into other games as Pokémon gyms or Professor Layton stepping stones, but they’ve got nothing on A Monster’s Expedition’s gentle coaxing of understanding.

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Undertale - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Imogen Beckhelling)

It’s been five years since Toby Fox graced our lives with Undertale, so let’s watch a concert to celebrate. Streamed last night, Undertale’s Fifth Anniversary concert saw the Music Engine orchestra perform songs from the soundtrack for over two hours, as well as piano performances from Toby Fox himself.

Fox also took the anniversary as an opportunity to provide an update on second chapter of Deltarune, the next part of his quirky, twisty RPG series.

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Destiny 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

Do not, as this official Destiny 2 screenshot suggests, bring an Arcstrider to Lake of Shadows.

If you’re short on upgrade materials in Destiny 2, you fancy building a stockpile ahead of the new expansion, or you just enjoy a challenge, this week has a fun opportunity to farm for huge rewards. The Lake Of Shadows mission is giving double rewards in Nightfall: The Ordeal mode until Tuesday, and I recommend having a go on a high difficult level. Lake cranked up to Grandmaster turns Destiny into a tactical shooter, requiring careful, planning, coordination, and execution or even a small fight will get you murdered, which is a lot more fun than it sounds. Scoring loads of Ascendant Shards and Exotic items is just gravy.

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Oxenfree - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Colm Ahern)

A screenshot of three characters in Oxenfree. One is displaying a choice of three speech bubbles - 'What are you talking about?', 'Uh oh. You're insane' and 'We haven't seen you'.

If your friend asked you a question – innocuous or not – they wouldn’t just sit there, quietly, waiting for you to answer. They’d continue the conversation with a follow-up query or statement, or they’d change the topic.

The point is: they wouldn’t just… wait. But that’s what video game characters regularly do when players are given dialogue options. NPCs shut their traps, eagerly awaiting the cue line that allows them to open their mouths again.

The teenagers of Oxenfree don’t do that. Their chats are interruption-filled messes. And it’s pure magic.

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FINAL FANTASY XIV Online - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Natalie Clayton)

Hey, did you know Final Fantasy XIV has a housing shortage? I was not aware Final Fantasy XIV could have a housing shortage, but here we are! Having already announced plans to shore up the shortage last month, Square Enix have now cemented the motion – building 720 new plots of land and erecting a new block of flats in each server when patch 5.35 arrives later this month.

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The Invincible - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Natalie Clayton)

You called a spaceship The Invincible? Rookie mistake, lads. That’s just asking for a wreckage. Fortunately, retrofuturist space disasters make for bloody gorgeous videogames, the latest being a first-person thriller from new studio Starward Industries. Formed of folks with The Witcher, Cyberpunk, Dying Light and more, the devs are now shooting for an atompunk space horror with the dinkiest little moon-rover I’ve ever seen.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Natalie Clayton)

Super-powered heroes? Nefarious evil organisations? Dubious allegories to real-world oppression? Overwatch is already basically a comic book series, so why not lean all the way into that? This month, Blizzard are doing just that. Tracer’s Comic Challenge is a graphic two-week event for picking up some themed cosmetics, running alongside the release of a new webcomic starring everyone’s favourite spatially-unbound Londoner.

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Rocket League® - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Natalie Clayton)

Rocket League

is almost, finally free. A little over 5 years after its debut, videogames’ favourite vehicular footy match is going free-to-play and moving to a new home on the Epic Games Store next Wednesday, September 23rd. It’s leaving Steam to do so, sadly – but if you pick up the keys within a month of its Epic debut, you’ll snag a free $10 to spend on Sweeney’s storefront.

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No Place for Bravery - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice Bell)

A screenshot of the protagonist of No Place For Bravery, Thorn, standing over a recently vanquished enemy. Thorn is a little pixely warrior with a beard and a sword, a barrel chest, and legs about two pixels wide. He has just defeated a giant with a massive, massive wooden shield. This giant is lying on the floor in a pool of blood. It's pretty, in a horrible way.

I’ve been banging my head against the PAX X EGX demo for No Place For Bravery for a while now. It’s a very stylish action RPG where you, a warrior with adorable stick-thin legs holding up a big meaty-boi body, are out to rescue your daughter Leaf from grim monsters. You get to execute your enemies after defeating them, and lots of blood gets splashed all over the place. I like almost everything about it: the music is great, the animations are slick and cool, the art and design on the world is grim and gorgeous.

I like everything about it apart from the combat. Which is a bit of a problem for a game focused on combat, I suppose. And yet the rest of it is so good, I keep going back for more.

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Sid Meier's Civilization® IV - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Imogen Beckhelling)

Sid Meier, that legendary game dev whose name sits before the names of Civilization games, had a lovely chat with our very own Nate Crowley this weekend, as part of PAX Online X EGX Digital. The pair talked all about some of the most notable parts of Meier’s career – including, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates!, and Civilization – as well as chat about his upcoming book, Sid Meier’s Memoir!: A Life In Computer Games. And thanks to computers, you can watch their whole chat in full below.

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