The Sims 4's next expansion is the ridiculously idyllic version of British countryside living. Electronic Arts revealed the Cottage Living expansion last month and they've now called up a local llama to give you the details. Why the llama? Well he's more English than I am, so I trust he knows more about the affairs of the new Henford-on-Bagley neighbourhood than I do. Here's Harold in a new trailer to show off livestock, canning, local fairs and more.
The Saturday morning cartoon version of Capcom’s Monster Hunter games, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin, is out July 9. That’s close enough for them to whip up the launch trailer below. As we’re approaching the release date, Capcom just released a look at the game’s coop mode, and have announced that there’s going to be a demo for everyone to try on launch day.
Here’s the launch trailer.
Pride month is over now, but you still have a couple more days to grab a massive bundle of games and things from queer developers over on Itch.io. The Queer Games Bundle contains 236 items, from video game RPGs to tabletop RPGs, as well as dating sims, software, zines and more. All money raised from the bundle is split evenly between all the creators involved in it, and at the time of writing they've made over $102,000 (around £74,500).
Now that we're over the E3 hump, Imogen and I thought we'd catch a break on this week's episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang. But no, the online shooters simply do not stop reloading. PUBG dropped a new map on its test servers, Warzone fixed its murder door, and Valorant's new agent sounds very> overpowered.
And speaking of agents, our theme this week was, well, agents/heroes/operators/characters, or whatever else you'd call them in an online shooter. We both went down the Overwatch route because my word does that game have some good heroes. I think they're called heroes?
It was Imogen's turn to surprise me with some strange names she's played with this week. Amazingly, two of them weren't Sage players in Valorant. Unbelievable.
Monster Hunter Rise isn't due to arrive on PC until early next year, but I've been playing the Switch version over the last week after getting the game for my birthday - and I actually can't stop. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been slicing up its oversized lizards with my beloved Dual Blades like nobody's business, gutting their scales, pelts, fangs and goodness knows what else to make even stronger pairs of dino pants so I can get back out there and take on ever-larger beasties and make ever more fashionable trousers. It's a familiar rhythm to Monster Hunter games of yore, but there's something about Rise that's kept me hooked far longer than my jaunts in previous MonHan games, including PC mega hit Monster Hunter: World. And I think it's partly down to my new dog friends, the Palamutes.
While BioWare are keeping their lips sealed on Dragon Age and Mass Effect newness for now, they've announced some surprise newness for their 10-year old MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. They're launching a new expansion named Legacy Of The Sith, which will add new story, combat styles, areas and more. It's coming out towards the end of this year, and the devs say this is the start of a year-long celebration for the game's 10th anniversary (so even more updates will arrive throughout 2022).
I think I am slightly out of sync with the original fortnightly schedule for this, owing to E3 destroying about a week of our lives, but now I'm back! Or rather, I'm gone - to my mum's house again. This means that my big rig is alone in Brighton, while I am here with my MacBook Air for company.
As such, everything this week is also playable on Mac OS. And blimey, loads of good games are on Mac these days, aren't they? It's a really great distraction from all the spiders in this house, and the fact that the shower osscilates between being freezing cold and boiling, bum-burning hot. The actual realities of cottagecore would shock you people.
A lot of video games have silly names and there's no reason for it. It just confuses the potential player. Why call it Mass Effect when you could instead call it Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? So, for Mystery Steam Reviews this week, we're celebrating those video games that tell it like it is.
If you were just dying to know> more about zombie parkour 'em up Dying Light 2, then that's great, because developers Techland showed off a new gameplay trailer in their latest "Dying 2 Know" livestream. First thing to note: there is a lot of parkour. Second: the stealth actually looks quite good. And third: you will recognise many of these zombies.
A Dead Space return has long been rumoured, with everything from a remaster of the first game to a new game being hinted at. It looks like it’ll be somewhere in between, with reports suggesting that EA Motive are working on a remake of the original game, and an expected reveal at July 22’s EA Play Live.