Final Fantasy 16

‘s future on PC may have been thrown into doubt over the last 48 hours thanks to Square Enix’s ongoing exclusivity mess, but man alive, I am EXCITED all the same. Partly because its brand new “Awakening” reveal trailer shown off during Wednesday’s latest PS5 Showcase a) looked fantastic, and b) explicitly stated it had been captured on PC, thereby giving me hope that it will come to PC eventually. But mostly because it reminded me a lot of the previous game in the series, the wonderful (but epically flawed) Final Fantasy 15. Allow me to explain.

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I’ve missed all the demos so far for Stronghold Warlords, the upcoming instalment in Firefly Studios’ long-running castle-building-and-bashing series, despite being a big fan of the original games. But seeing as Warlords is being featured at Ye Olde PAX X EGX, and I had my hands on the new demo (which is out right now!), I figured now was the time to get stuck in.

Well, I’m glad I tried it. And I’m glad I waited, too. It seems Warlords has been through a lot of changes over the course of its development, but what’s there now is very solid indeed. And while it has been delayed from its original launch date this month to January 26, 2021, I’m happy that Firefly are taking their time. Although I’ve only played the single campaign-ish scenario included in the demo, it gave me a solid hit of the satisfaction I associate with the original Stronghold. Plus, more importantly, it manages to genuinely innovate on the formula. Here’s how.

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It’s Talk Like A Pirate Day on Saturday, so naturally, Rare’s excellent pirate adventure Sea Of Thieves has some goodies in store for its players. The first of which is a free ship set inspired by Ori And The Blind Forest (or Will Of The Wisps, I suppose). And the second is a whole weekend of double gold and reputation rewards between today and Sunday the 20th of September.

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If you need to wrest back some control over your environment in these unprecedented times, as they say, Nvidia have launched a new app for that. Their new Nvidia Broadcast application is made for removing annoying noises and messy home offices from the background of your morning work calls or evening livestreaming sessions.

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If you’re aching for some new things to do in Left 4 Dead 2, then I have some wonderful news. The game’s first official content update in eight years drops on September 24th bringing with it The Last Stand, a campaign based on the first game’s lighthouse Survival mode map.

Now, that would be pretty cool in itself, but this update is adding not one, but 20 new Survival arenas, four Scavenge arenas, 30 new achievements, loads of previously-unused voice lines, new melee weapons, animations and hundreds of bug fixes to top it all off.

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The League Of Legends 2020 Season World Championship starts next week, which means it’s time for another song and music video about being really good at video games. This year, Riot’s music team have drafted Jeremy McKinnon (the lead singer of A Day To Remember) and mononymous singers MAX and Henry for a song called Take Over. Does it top Warriors, the Worlds 2014 song by Imagine Dragons? No, of course not, but it does have enough pomp and bass to put up a respectable show.

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Inkulinati

is a turn-based strategy game where you take control of a Master of Living Ink, or Inkulinati, as they’re otherwise known. Inkulinati face off against one another by drawing weird and fantastical beasts on the margins of medieval manuscripts and sending them into battle. It’s basically a fight to the death, but with doodles, and it’s all in a stunning art style inspired by real life medieval marginalia.

Turns out these 700 year old drawings lend themselves very nicely to a 2D duel. The combat is easy to grasp (“but hard to master”, he mutters under his breath) and there’s a snappy flow to battles as turns flip between you and the enemy with an uncomplicated ease. I like this about Inkulinati a lot – it doesn’t overdo things. It’s clutter free. Each unit you command has only a handful of options and movement is limited, but this makes each decision matter. The folks over at Yaza Games clearly know what makes a turn-based battler tick, but I can see this appealing to both the more serious strategy-heads and players who want a more whimsical, relaxed vibe.

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Michel Ancel, the co-creator of Rayman and creative director of Beyond Good & Evil, today announced that he’s stopping working on video games. The French designer started at Ubisoft when he was a teenager and, after over 30 years in the industry spent mostly at Ubi, says he wants to focus on his second passion, wildlife. Come for the announcement, stay for the video of a fox stealing brioche.

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This is not a post I ever wanted to write. Matthew Castle and Sin Vega are leaving RPS today. Come join me in saying farewell.

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Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent have managed to draw the eyes of the US government for their dealings with American companies like Riot and Epic Games. Tencent own the former and have a 40% stake in the latter, not to mention ties with Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Discord, and more. Now, a government agency want to know how Tencent are handling the security of Americans’ personal data.

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