As with all headlines that are phrased as a question, the answer is "probably not", but in any case, Miyazaki has mysteriously hinted at there being at least one secret thing in Elden Ring that players haven't found yet. On this week's Electronic Wireless Show podcast we discuss this, as well as some of our favourite and least favourite deployments of the video game Easter egg. We also talk about what we've been playing this week (Nightingale; PowerWash Sim, natch) and visiting Scotland. Sadly neither of us got to go to the Glasgow Willy Wonka experience. But we both wish we could have.

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Today's the day of the RPS Game Club liveblog, where we'll all pile into a single article to talk, in real-time, about February's game pick, Cobalt Core. We'll be kicking off shortly at 4pm GMT today (Thursday February 29th), so go and grab a cuppa, switch on some appropriate music, and we'll get this liveblog started.

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Rocket Rat Games co-founder John Guerra remembers the exact day he started working on Cobalt Core's first prototype. He and his fellow co-founder Ben Driscoll had just spent a week playing Daniel Mullins' mysterious roguelike deckbuilder Inscryption at the end of October 2021, but the combination of a bad storm and a power outage ended up forcing Guerra to decamp from his home in Massachusetts and stay with some family until it all blew over. "I got back late on Halloween, just in time to put out a bowl of candy for some kids, and then the next morning we started Cobalt Core," he tells me.

The pair had been working on a range of different prototypes in the months leading up to this lightbulb moment. As development on their debut game, the spaceship building puzzler Sunshine Heavy Industries, began winding down, "we were throwing all kinds of stuff at the wall," he says, including games in 3D, a platformer, with Driscoll revealing they even had "a Terraria-like one for a couple of weeks" with a grid-based world that characters bounced around in. But it was playing Inscryption that brought everything to a head. Both had spent hundreds of hours with Slay The Spire, but "Inscryption proved to us that there was still a lot of space to explore in the genre," says Guerra. And with increasing calls from Sunshine Heavy Industries players begging them to let them fly the ships they were creating in its shipyard sandbox, "you can kind of see how that went from A to B".

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In Shakespeare's Anthony And Cleopatra, said famous woman says "Give to a gracious message an host of tongues, but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt." I.e., when you have good news you can go round the houses, but if you have bad news - like sending an all-hands email to the staff at EA to let them know that, less than a year after the last round of layoffs, a further 5% of them are getting booted - then you should just come out and say it as quickly and simply as possible.

This is, apparently, not a sentiment ever internalised by Andrew Wilson, EA's CEO. Yesterday, when he announced to everyone at EA that a bunch of them were losing their jobs (again), he first spent three paragraphs talking about how EA is doing great, leading the industry, getting increasing engagement from fans, optimising their global footprint and sunsetting games oh yep, there it is, that's the "you're about to be unemployed" language right there. The company is moving away from "the development of future licensed IP" and toward "our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities". Therefore: 670 ish devs (by Eurogamer's count) must go.

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We knew the Helldivers 2 team were looking ahead to the future now that they'd largely overcome the game's most significant server issues. But we weren't expecting to see new additions quite so quickly, as rideable mechs have been spotted in the wilds. When are they actually being added to the game? No idea. Do they look cool as heck? Yes, absolutely.

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The Brew Barons unfolds in a horrifying world where most agricultural tasks and outdoor mechanical activities are carried out using the medium of heavily armed seaplanes. Need apples for cider? Fly through the trees, cannons ablazing. Need to gather wheat? Fly the plane through the field using its propeller as a scythe, with hardier types of wheat requiring tougher propeller blades. Need to haul up scavenge from the ocean floor? Use the plane's sea anchor as a rudimentary fishing claw. Need to open a box you found on the beach? The plane's the thing, etcetera.

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Control has joined Alan Wake in being fully owned by developers Remedy Entertainment, as the studio announced they have acquired the complete rights to their supernatural shooter - including its upcoming sequel and co-op spin-off - from publisher 505 Games.

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Almost a year after it launched into early access, Inkbound will release its full 1.0 offering this April. The cooperative mixture of tight turn-based combat and roguelike progression from the folks behind Slay the Spire-rivalling deckbuilder Monster Train will mark its full release with a new questline and final boss for its story, as well as a bunch of other additions and improvements.

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Last time, you decided that cosmetics unlocked by challenges are better than characters making 'bdbdbdbdbdi' noises while talking in text. This was a close one but your voices were, regrettably, heard clear. This week, I ask you to choose between two different ways to clear your path of obstacles. What's better: enemies stopping respawning after you kill them loads, or removing a card from your deck?

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Changes to Overwatch 2’s Competitive system in its most recent Season Nine has seen the ranked mode overtake casual Quick Play as the most popular way to play the hero shooter sequel. Its developers are also looking ahead to further changes in Season 10, including adjustments to grouping restrictions and its experimental Hacked event.

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