Okay so maybe Valhalla was too Assassin's Creed-y for you and Valheim is too crafty. If so, perhaps this end of the viking trend will be just right. Frozenheim is an upcoming city builder with RTS combat where you've got to help your clan survive the harsh north. This next Norse 'em up is planning to launch in early access in May.
What's new in The Division 2? Well not much, for a while anyway. Ubisoft have announced that they're working on a big update with a new game mode but it won't be out until later this year at the earliest. Until then, The Division 2 will be re-running past seasons so you can play through things you might have missed.
If you fancy a point-and-click 'em up adventure, hop on. If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers is a mysterious four-act story set at a 1920s masquerade that's just left the station. It's set on a train, you see, and it launched today. You can even pick it up for free.
Co-op puzzle fans prepare your microphones, there's another game in the castle escape series We Were Here arriving this year. As with past games in the series, We Were Here Forever is a slightly spooky escape room adventure that requires you and a pal to coordinate via walkie-talkie while trapped in different areas of the frosty Castle Rock. Hopefully you won't actually be stuck there forever, unless your pals are terrible at puzzles, that is.
Last week, your votes decided that inventory Tetris is better than fishing minigames. I was surprised by quite how many people outright disliked both of these. But I am glad that the final result fell in line with my fondness for repacking virtual bags and sorting grenades by colour. So this week, let's continue our journey towards the best thing by battling two which are undeniably great. What's better: drifting, or dinosaurs?
"Romantic metal detecting adventure" isn't a group of words I'd have expected to write today, but it turns out romance is always possible with a bit of history and mystery. The Magnificent Trufflepigs is an upcoming adventure in northern England in which main character Adam digs up some buried mysteries on an old farm while talking to his pal Beth. If you recognise the voice, that sure is Arthur Darvill who you may remember as Rory of Doctor Who fame.
The earliest days of computer gaming are murky at best, but the first ever role-playing video game is generally agreed to be somewhere in the realm of Richard Garriott’s Akalabeth, Rogue, and Tower Of Apshai. All three were based on the simple but compelling premise of descending into a dungeon to battle skeletons, vampires, and all manner of other monsters while seeking treasure. The limited technology of the day meant that none of them could replicate the narrative magic of Dungeons & Dragons - their nearest inspiration - but their unique mixture of stats, loot, and class-based gameplay helped capture the hearts of PC gaming’s first generation.
Today, RPGs are more focused on the impact of narrative choice, with games like Mass Effect lauded for their spiderweb-like branching points. It’s a trend taken to its limit by Disco Elysium, which trades traditional combat for sharp exchanges and insults. Still, the classical dungeon crawler lives on through Dark Souls, Diablo, and now a curious little auto-battler called Loop Hero.
I've been bouncing between many games of late, mainly co-op adventures with friends so we can stay in touch through *gestures wildly, frantically>* this. But if no-one's around, I'll hop into Final Fantasy XV to spend some chill time with my virtual buds.
And there's one member of this merry band who I've grown to really appreciate, perhaps more than any other AI-controlled companion I've encountered before: Prompto, the one who documents our road trip through his camera shutter. I want him in every game I play from here on out.
I have warm childhood memories of the Ninja Turtles arcade cabinet at the swimming pool. As I waited for my mum, I'd furiously waggle the joystick and mash buttons while watching the demo screen I couldn't afford to play beyond. Now kids just shout at Twitch, tch. But I understand the Turtlesarcade gae was beloved by people who did have spare coins, so maybe they'll be interested to hear that one of the studios behind Streets Of Rage 4 today announced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge.
Even on a good day, the nude murder island of Rust harbours many threats that might rob you, kill you, and destroy your home. Today was not a good day, and the threat was a surprising one. 25 of the sandbox survival game's European servers have been destroyed by a fire at a data centre, and developers Facepunch Studios say they will not be able to restore the lost data.