Honkai: Star Rail predecessor Honkai Impact 3rd will drop its massive Part 2 update later this week, shifting the hack-and-slash action RPG’s story to the new planet of Mars, introducing a new main character and revamping its aerial combat.
Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by hugging pocket monsters, schoolyard violence, a "weirdass, janky imsim... thing" with teleporting cigarettes, and more. Check out all these attractive and interesting indie games!
Helldivers 2 developers Arrowhead have said they will be able to get back to working on future “improvements” for the superb bug-stomping, bot-blasting shooter after finally resolving the weeks-long server struggles caused by the game’s immense popularity.
What the Car? is a zany racing game in which you are a car with legs that must race around various courses to get the best time possible. Except sometimes you’re not just a car with legs, you’re also a car with a jetpack. Or with wings. Or swimming. Or singing. It’s from the folks behind the similarly absurd What the Golf?, and it’s coming to Steam this year.
Nobuo Uematsu, the celebrated composer behind the iconic soundtracks for much of the Final Fantasy series, has said he probably won’t score a full video game again. While Uematsu didn’t rule out creating the main themes for future games, he said that his days of scoring an entire game are likely over - leaving his last complete soundtrack as the OST for mobile-exclusive RPG Fantasian.
Supermassive Games have announced a period of consultation and reorganisation that will end in job losses, as the Until Dawn developers try "to ensure the continued sustainability of the company". It follows a report that studio leadership told 150 people their jobs were at risk earlier today, with around 90 staff expected to eventually leave the business following the consultation.
The roguelikelike deck-building poker game Balatro is frankly the only game I care for right now. My head fizzes with ideas for fiendish combos and deeply illegal hands. I'm delighted by its deserved success, with the makers boasting that it sold enough to become profitable within one hour then sold 250,000 copies in 72 hours. In a recent interview, the developer claims that part of why it's so damn successful is because they've barely played other roguelikelike deckbuilders so it's free to do its own thing outside genre conventions. What's interesting to me in this is how Balatro has built on a game which did influence it, the slot machine-building game Luck Be A Landlord.
Rainbow Six Siege's creative director Alexander Karpazis doesn't believe the elderly shooter needs a change of game engine or for that matter, a sequel. He feels that Siege can "last forever", adding that "I'm not going to name names, but you see games go through sequels and just completely drop the ball."
If you like to play competitive games that benefit from a higher frame-rate and refresh rate, then this 1440p 240Hz monitor for $300 in Best Buy US is well worth knowing about. This is an HP OMen 27qs to be exact, a well-regarded Fast IPS model that combines good all-around characteristics with excellent motion handling and that high refresh rate - now discounted by $130.
If you're after a Steam Deck at a bargain price, The Game Collection is selling 512GB LCD models for £375 with the code LEAP20 at Ebay, which takes 20% off the previous £450 price for these new models.