In the comments under my interview with the Paradise Killer devs last week, someone suggested posting more of the answers as like a B-side. I thought this was an excellent suggestion, for three reasons: 1) it's a much easier post to write on my part compared to doing the full interview; b) Oli Clarke Smith and Phil Crabtree said a bunch of interesting things that I wasn't able to cram into the article; iii) it might give you a sense of how weird interviews actually are.

This transcript is just two questions and a follow-up, but runs to over 1500 words. The whole conversation I had with these two dudes was over 40 minutes long. So much of interviews gets discarded (like tears in rain etc) and the process of distilling it all down to a few quotes can be, to put it succinctly, a pain in the hole. Especially if your interview subject talks quickly. Top tip to people who don't like interviews: talk slowly. It'll be over faster.

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Starship Troopers - Terran Command, an upcoming RTS based on the film series, has been delayed to June 16th 2022. Well, in the grand scheme of delays, that’s not too bad. The original release date for Starship Troopers - Terran Command was March 31st, just nine days away. Publisher Slitherine Games and developers The Artistocrats announced the news in a Steam post for the game, pinning the reason on “further polish and bug fixing.”

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Last night, CD Projekt announced they were working on a brand-new Witcher game. Details are thin on the ground at the moment. All we have to go on is a cryptic piece of artwork showing what appears to be a lynx-like medallion peeking through some snow, and a declaration that it's going to represent a "new saga" of The Witcher series. Heck, we don't even know if it's technically going to be called The Witcher 4 yet (it probably isn't, in fairness), but for sake of ease that's how I'm going to refer to it for the time being.

Still, talk of a new saga has got me thinking. Does that mean we'll simply see a new protagonist in the existing Witcher timeline we know and love? (Ciri, perhaps, or young hot Vesemir?) Or will it go earlier, maybe tying into the upcoming Netflix prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin that's set 1200 years before the events of the books? Or something else entirely? We probably won't know the answers for some time, but until CD Projekt have more beans to spill, RPS asks: what would you> like to see from a new game in The Witcher series?

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Microsoft recently announced that they’d cracked how to get Game Pass games running on the handheld Steam Deck. Great! It involves installing a beta version of Microsoft Edge (less great!) and, by way of a Game Pass Ultimate subscription, streaming those games to the Deck in a browser. Not running Game Pass games locally, in other words, but running them well enough to be playable, and with seamless compatibility for the Steam Deck’s controls.

After having gone through the lengthy setup process (explained below, if you want to try streaming Game Pass games on the Steam Deck yourself) and playing for a while, I can say it’s a good enough start in bringing Microsoft’s library to Valve’s handheld. Between this and the Epic Games Launcher, it’s a relief that the Deck’s default SteamOS won’t be limited to Steam games after all. Still, a beta is a beta, and there are very much some kinks to work out.

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It's incredible to me that the last Lego Star Wars game came out in 2016. This was Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, based on the first game in the new trilogy. For whatever reason, the other two films never got their own games - I just assumed that was because nobody liked the films that much. The truth is, developers TT Games have been working on them all along, albeit as part of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, a mega-game including all nine mainline films in the franchise.

It's been in development for a while, and has been delayed several times, allegedly resulting in extensive crunch. It's finally coming out on April 5th, but having played about an hour of Episode IV, this is not the Lego Star Wars-ing I remember. The plots are the same, of course, but much of its mindless minifig bashing has now been swapped for... over-the-shoulder third-person shooting? I feel a great disturbance in the Force.

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Sundays are for slopping vinegar over fish and chips. Before you pour, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).

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I loved Long Live The Queen and Black Closet, two games with heavily branching and systemic narratives and a lot of juicy melodrama, mystery and romance. Now developers Hanako Games have released something new. Night Cascades is a lesbian romance about two women investigating a supernatural mystery in an alternate 1980s, and it looks great.

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Here we go: spring starts on Sunday. At long chuffing last! Not to be a downer, but winter has DRAGGED during the pandemic. Usual winter activities crowding into hot rooms with steam rising off people's soaking wool jumpers, the smell of wet dog in the air, and just so much closeness and breath has been as appealing. But now, spring! Soon, maybe even warmth? For now, what are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on.

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Last week I took a bit of holiday to, you know, catch up on some housework, have a bit of a rest and, to change the habit of a lifetime, play some video games. I knew straight away what would be first up on my video game playlist: FAR: Changing Tides, the sequel to Okomotive's beautifully melancholy roadtrip adventure, FAR: Lone Sails. While Changing Tides tells a separate story to its predecessor, putting you in the shoes of a new protagonist and swapping its desolate wastelands for a watery seascape, the hot, beating core powering the game remains very much the same. With nothing left for you at home in the wake of an unknown disaster, it's time to pack up and head on out for a new beginning, with only your hulking great boat/steamtrain contraption for company.

If you still haven't played FAR: Changing Tides, I'd urge you to stop reading now and come back later. There are big spoilers about the game's ending coming up in this article, and I really don't want to ruin that for you. So, fair warning, okay? If you're still here I'm assuming you've played and finished Changing Tides, because holy moly, isn't it just the most perfect thing?

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Thy Creature is an odd one. I want to make several comparisons to other games that probably aren't very accurate or fair. I think that's because it's one of those that's made up of the gaps in between other genres. Right from the start of its anime goth girl intro I knew this wasn't really my kind of thing, and yet its striking art and sense of sincerity felt compelling.

And it was a bit weird, which is sometimes enough. It depicts a frankenstein cast out by villagers, left to wander the wilderness, across forests and mountains, still peppered with arrows, turning up at a sinister tower that seems to welcome them. And just a few minutes in, it reveals itself as a mystery puzzle game with bullet hell parts. Almost none of this is my thing at all, but here I am playing it. Hmm.

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