Over 14,000 games were released on Steam in 2023, according to according to data tracked by SteamDB. The number is nearly 2000 games more than in 2022, and continues a steady trend of growth on the digital storefront.
Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy was one of 2021's biggest surprises, succeeding where Square Enix's Avengers game failed by finding an identity beyond its movie counterpart thanks to strong writing. Alas, it didn't meet Square Enix's sales expectations.
Now it's free via the Epic Games Store.
I have been bouncing off Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, partly because the new protagonist design leaves me cold, and partly because it being a 2D affair has me yearning for something closer to the 1989 Apple II original, with its finicky platforming and sword-fighting. Katharine says it's decent, however, and the latest trailers are intriguing. One is an overview of the new metroidvania's locations, of which you can read much more in Katharine's last preview. The other is a quick dive into the game's approach to accessibility, which appears to be a lot more holistic than you'll find in many games.
Korean publisher Nexon have been fined 11.6 billion won - around $8.9 million - for secretly altering the drop rates of coveted items in free-to-play MMO gacha game MapleStory. The fine, issued by the Korea Fair Trade Commission, is the largest penalty ever doled out for violation of South Korea's Act on Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce.
Russian Roulette is just an edgy version of Snakes & Ladders. It's pure luck gussied up with high stakes and the cool aesthetic of spinning a six-shooter. A grizzled mafioso whose cheeks glitter with fragments of other people's teeth has as much chance of winning Russian Roulette as a sleepy five-year-old in SpongeBob pyjamas. But take Russian Roulette, swap the revolver for a pump-action shotgun, mix up live and dud rounds, and add Inscryption-esque items which let you change the rules, and now you have a more skillful game. That's Buckshot Roulette, the latest from Mike Klubnika, the dev behind those excellent horror games about operating machinery. Great weird machines here too.
Happy New Year, folks! Have you recovered from the all the 100+ hour RPGs that came out last year? Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that everyone seems to be taking a bit of a breather in 2024, because (at time of writing at least) the official "big'uns" calendar is looking remarkably slim at the moment. There are still some heavy-hitters coming our way this year, such as , Star Wars Outlaws and Path Of Exile 2, but 2024 looks like another year where it will be the smaller, independent games that shine the brightest. They certainly make up the bulk of our most anticipated games list for 2024, which the RPS Treehouse has been feverishly putting together over the last few days. The bad news is that there are still loads of great games coming out. So come, join us, and see what's on our personal wishlists for 2024.
Happy New Year, folks! Have you recovered from the all the 100+ hour RPGs that came out last year? Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that everyone seems to be taking a bit of a breather in 2024, because (at time of writing at least) the official "big'uns" calendar is looking remarkably slim at the moment. There are still some heavy-hitters coming our way this year, such as , Star Wars Outlaws and Path Of Exile 2, but 2024 looks like another year where it will be the smaller, independent games that shine the brightest. They certainly make up the bulk of our most anticipated games list for 2024, which the RPS Treehouse has been feverishly putting together over the last few days. The bad news is that there are still loads of great games coming out. So come, join us, and see what's on our personal wishlists for 2024.
Rockfish have announced that they're updating arcade dogfighter Everspace 2 to run on Unreal Engine 5. The engine rollover will arrive as part of or alongside the game's Incursions update in spring 2024, which includes tweaks and bugfixes as well as extra legendary items and a new game feature of some description. The idea is less to take advantage of UE5's various whizbangs and bellwhistles, like the new Nanite geometry system, than to grease the launch chutes for future Everspace 2 updates and expansions.
We got our first look at Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Dondoko Island at last year's Xbox Partner showcase. Right as it dropped, I was in New York giving the Animal Crossing-esque minigame a go myself, albeit for a quickfire half hour of bashing rubbish bags with a baseball bat and plonking a urinal on the dirt to satisfy a tutorial. Still, in that brief time I've come away thinking I could lose much of my life to the promise of converting a polluted island into an idyll with the power of abs and friendship. There is the strong possibility of a grind. But hey, it's optional!
Having spent some time in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Hawaii, I've come to realise that it's a wonderful place, home to trams that'll let you see the sights and soak in the warm breeze. But moreso than that, it's home to the previous game's Pokémon parody, Sujimon, which has now kicked into overdrive. From what I can tell, Infinite Wealth is as much a Pokémon trainers paradise as it is a game about the Japanese criminal underworld. I'm sold.