In what appears to be a world first, a Twitch streamer has completed a blindfolded speedrun of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Yep, you read that right.

Earlier this week streamer Mitchriz completed Sekiro's Shura ending with a time of four hours, 35 minutes and 13 seconds, all while blindfolded. Here's a clip of the moment he completed the run - spoilers for the final boss, obviously:

It's worth watching the rest of the run, too, as it's fascinating to see how Mitchriz navigates Sekiro's world using only audio cues. (Rather conveniently, he also has an input overlay so you can see what he's doing with his mouse and keyboard.) On sections near cliff edges, Mitchriz has to carefully count down the seconds to measure how far he's walking in any one direction, often darting forwards to help control his movements. On some occasions Mitchriz slashes with a sword until he hits a wall, with the change in sound indicating his position. Grapple points seem to serve as useful tools for navigation, while enemy sounds and cutscenes also help telegraph his position.

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"It's exhausting, frustrating and it's counter to the messaging they give us." That was the reaction of one Ubisoft developer to CEO Yves Guillemot's email to staff last night.

On Wednesday, nearly 500 current and former Ubisoft employees (we understand this figure is now over 1000) across 32 studios, signed an open letter in solidarity with Activision Blizzard staff following a recent lawsuit that called the World of Warcraft and Overwatch studio "a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women".

The letter slammed Ubisoft leadership's "empty promises" in response to allegations of "systemic discrimination, harassment and bullying" within the company, and proposed an industry wide collaboration to agree a set of "rules and processes for handling reports of these offences".

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I keep coming back to rhythm with games like this. Rhythm's always had a part to play in action games, where good combat is a dance, and bad a little out-of-step. It's all in the one, two, dodge, the little passive mental counter ticking over from that boss' second smash to the third, the half a beat between the third and the jump.

So it is with Death's Door, a sumptuously beautiful Zelda-like about the immutable beat of time, the rhythm of life and death. Except there's something else, hard to place, that seems to give it something extra. Death's Door has something, like a flavour that maybe isn't actually a flavour, more of a sensation. Umami. What's the umami of dance?

Acid Nerve's last game was Titan Souls, which came out way back in 2015. Titan Souls is one of those games that's all about simplicity - you get one arrow, you die in one hit, you have a world to explore and quite a few bosses to kill, off you go. Its cleverness is the classic indie creative cleverness, where you give yourself an arbitrary restriction to keep things focused, keep the concept pure, and then you just build outwards from there. And it's important context here, because build outwards from Titan Souls and you'll arrive more or less exactly at Death's Door, a game with no restrictions but plenty of restraint. Bosses, combat, a mysterious overworld, some lightly puzzling environments - the totality of the first is the foundation of the next, and so the impression is one of clarity: as a studio, Acid Nerve comes across as having a clear plan, a clear trajectory, but then as a result of that so do its games.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: rats, sieges and samurai.

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What we've been playing, here's our archive.

Online multiplayer games have never been my thing. I've heard too many stories about toxic players and the abuse directed towards women, POC, and queer players, let alone the anger thrown your way if you're - god forbid - learning how to play the game and don't have the reflexes of a teen who just downed three espressos.

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Forza Motorsport 7 will reach "End of Life status" on 15th September, developer Turn 10 Studios has announced.

That means you will no longer be able to purchase the game or its DLC from the Microsoft Store after that date, nor will it be available on Xbox Game Pass.

Existing owners will still be able to download and play the game after the date, and online services will continue to run.

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SkateBird, the adorable avian-themed skateboarding title from developer Glass Bottom Games, has pushed back its release by just over a month, and will now come to Xbox, Switch, PC, and Amazon Luna on 16th September.

SkateBird, which was originally due to release in August, casts players as a "chill little skateboarding bird" that passes the time waiting for its owner to come home from work by constructing a glorious, homemade skatepark.

In this bird-sized skateboarding paradise, players can trick and grind their way toward completing missions and unlocking courses, hopefully attracting a loyal bird following and fixing their human friend's life along the way.

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Hyper Light Drifter developer Heart Machine's gorgeous sci-fi action-adventure Solar Ash finally has a release date and will be heading to PlayStation and PC on 26th October.

Announced back in 2019 under the working title Solar Ash Kingdom, Heart Machine's latest adventure takes players to a "surreal, vivid and highly stylised world filled with mystery, wild high-speed traversal, endearing characters, and massive enemy encounters" as they, in the role of Voidrunner Rei, attempt to save their home planet from the Ultravoid - a massive black hole that swallows entire worlds.

In more practical terms, Solar Ash (which trades Hyper Light Drifter's intricate top-down pixel art for a fully 3D world) is a third-person action-platformer with a focus on "fluidity of movement". Players are able to quickly leap, slide, grind, and grapple across huge distances as they explore the likes of sunken cities, vast water shelves, and dangerous lava zones, battling ever-more fearsome enemies along the way.

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Tonight's Annapurna Interactive showcase revealed an array of new projects, updates and release dates for the many eye-catching indie games the company currently has under its wing.

The top-drawer indie publisher showcased more than a dozen upcoming titles including The Artful Escape, Stray and Outer Wilds, plus confirmed new partnerships and ports.

The showcase opened with another look at the long-awaited The Artful Escape, which you can read more about here. Its starry voice cast and a 9th September release date for Steam and Xbox were also announced.

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Rock opera adventure The Artful Escape will finally launch for Steam, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 9th September.

The long-awaited and glorious-looking platformer will also launch directly into Xbox Game Pass.

The Artful Escape stars Teen Wolf's Michael Johnston and newcomer Caroline Kinley as main characters Francis and Violetta, plus Game of Thrones' Lena Headey, Fargo's Jason Schwartzman, Kingsman's Mark Strong and The Mandalorian's Carl Weathers.

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Outer Wilds developer Mobius has officially confirmed Echoes of the Eye, the game's "first and only expansion" which will arrive on 28th September for PC, PlayStation and Xbox.

The story of this new chapter, revealed as part of tonight's Annapurna Interactive showcase, remains largely a mystery.

"It's going to weave directly into the existing world and narrative," creative director Alex Beachum teased. "Now, if you've played the game, you might be wondering how. And also why. And those are very good questions."

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