Neat news in the world of Rogue-likers, Rogue itself is getting a Steam release later this month. That’s right, no flashy graphics here. Just good ol’ text characters as the Dungeons of Doom were meant to be experienced. It will be available on October 20th.
We’re in the thick of spooky season right now, but not to worry there’s plenty left to come even after October ends. Bloober Team of Layers Of Fear fame is summoning up The Medium this year. Their dual-world psychological horror game is launching on December 10th.
I still barely know what Bugsnax is about. At surface level, it’s apparently an island full of semi-sentient snack foods and the colorful Muppet-like folks who’ve arrived to research them. There’s definitely more to it than that, and we’ll all only have a bit longer to wait to figure out its secrets for ourselves. Bugsnax launches on November 12th, which they’ve announced via an uncanny video showcasing their voice cast.
Sam Barlow, the writer and designer of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, has been muttering about plans to make a follow-up of sorts to the 2009 horror game. Not a sequel nor even a game with ‘Silent Hill’ in the name, but a spiritual successor combining bits of that with lessons he’s learned from making other games and a bit of extra oomph. After Shattered Memories, Barlow found fame with voyeuristic FMV games Her Story and Telling Lies. The non-Silent Hill game is still only an idea, mind, one he’s still pitching. But maybe?
Steam returns with actual hundreds of free demos for its Autumn Festival. I am but one woman, so I could never get through them all, but I have played what I would characterise as a lot> over the past two days. My own personal labour of Hercules was undertaken so that I could bring you, the reader, a list of my favourite demos to provide, if not an exhaustive list, then at least a jumping off point.
I’ve got something for all of yez, gentle pals. Puzzle games? RPGs? Action? Strategy? Why yes, even that. I’ve got an EDM murder rave, dressing up in pre-revolutionary Paris, ripping up legal documents as a cute turnip, and rodents you should live in fear of. So many games! Your favourite is sure to be among them.
Yesterday, AMD gave us our first glimpse of what their upcoming RX 6000 [cms-block] graphics cards will be able achieve at 4K. While the bulk of their Zen 3 event was centred around their Ryzen 5000 CPUs, we also got a first look at their first Big Navi GPU in action, running Borderlands 3 on its top Badass quality settings at an average of 61fps. AMD also shared some figures for Gears 5 and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, but how do these benchmark figures actually stack up against Nvidia’s new [cms-block]? Let’s find out.
Frictional Games have published another trailer for upcoming horror adventure Amnesia: Rebirth. It lets on a bit about the story and showcases quite a lot of the game’s environments as well. One thing does jump out: the latter are all quite different. Unlike the horror romps Frictional have done before, they explain, Rebirth will put an emphasis on touring you through locations that are quite different from one another.
Yesterday, Microsoft posted a list of their “10 app store principles”, in what reads like one big passive aggressive jab at Apple. They say these principles are designed to “promote choice and ensure fairness” on their Windows Stores (both mobile and desktop), and they include rules about just generally treating app developers fairly.
These are nice and good principles to stick to, yes. But the entire post doesn’t seem as though it’s really to assure devs, so much as it is to make very clear whose side they’re on in the whole Apple vs Epic debacle.
Tis the season for online games to get all haunted for a few weeks. Borderlands 3‘s Bloody Harvest is back with more skins to earn and spooks to shoot. It’s on from now until November 5th, so you’ve got some time to check it out alongside all the other in-game events on your schedule.
For those that don’t know, The PC Gaming Weekspot is a live, weekly video podcast that myself and my former VidBud Matthew Castle do every Monday evening over on the Rock Paper Shotgun YouTube channel. It’s a recap of the last seven days in PC gaming, with chat on the latest news, as well as some reviews on the latest games. But there’s one segment we do during The Weekspot that’s grown into a monster. A monster that I think you’d like, which is why I want to share it with you.