We’ve known that a Marvel game from former Uncharted writer-director Amy Hennig has been in the works for years, learning in 2022 that it will focus on Captain America and Black Panther during World War 2. Thanks to a proper reveal during today’s State of Unreal event, we now know that it’ll be called Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra and we’ll be able to play it sometime in 2025.
This article's headline is the characterisation of Everdeep Aurora given to me by publisher Ysbryd Games, but bizarrely enough, it reminded me initially of Bloodborne. A 2D platformer from Nautilus Games, Everdeep Aurora begins on the surface, where a ruptured crimson moon fills the sky with blazing meteors. That menacing moon is the first hint of Bloodborne, obviously. The second is the lamp-lit, locked-up house to one side, whose unseen occupant tells you to get lost, adding that they don’t believe all this crazy talk about the apocalypse.
I thought at once of the wealthier residents of Yharnam, feasting and laughing hysterically behind the shutters of their fancy townhouses on the night of the Hunt. There are no pitchfork-wielding mobs or werewolves stalking the vicinity, however. But there is a frog by a campfire, who tells you that everybody else has sought shelter underground, and hands you a drill so you can follow them.
After channelling the atmosphere and gory terror of Dead Space (though alas, not its reception) in 2022’s sci-fi horror shooter, The Callisto Protocol is apparently now looking to the likes of Hades to inspire a new roguelike spin-off set in its universe, currently codenamed Project Birdseye.
When it launched last year, DLSS 3 support and Radeon-beating ray tracing capabilities propelled the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti to the top of our 1440p graphics card estimations. Only its high price remains an ongoing concern, though the Amazon Spring Deal Days sale (that’s the Amazon Big Spring Sale to US folk) can at least take some of the sting out of upgrading. There are, while they last, cut-price RTX 4060 Ti models up for grabs on both sides of the pond.
One of the most controversial and often-cited criticisms of modern AI systems is that they’re built from, and dependent on, the stolen work of other people. It’s far from the only criticism people have of this new technology, which might make us wonder exactly why anyone wants it in the first place. Today, I’d like to talk about some of the brighter futures that might come out of generative AI for us, as well as why the path toward them might be a tricky one to walk cleanly.
My time with Dragon's Dogma 2 for review was neat, mainly because it's a good video game and an anecdote generator. But it reinforced one thing for me that I've increasingly come to realise about myself: I actually can't cope with character creators that let you like, tweak the finest details. I do not want to define the curls of each individual nose hair or adjust the angle of the mole on one's forehead. I'm far too indecisive for any of this! Let me roll the dice, please.
While there are minor thrills to be had finding the very latest PC hardware in the Amazon Spring Deal Days sale, don’t underestimate the draw of an older favourite emerging with a new, knockdown price. So it is with the Intel Core i5-12400F: this was a great-value midranger when it was new, and now you get it at a true budget-tier price of £108.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is an RPG of many admirable qualities. I’m especially attached to my Arisen’s current pair of Pawns, one of whom speaks with the wonderfully stretched intonations of a pitch-shifted Matt Berry. Sadly, none of its achievements pertain to technical> fidelity. While decent-looking, Dragon’s Dogma 2 takes some serious hardware to maintain consistently smooth performance, with lowered quality settings lending only the most limp-wristed of helping hands.
DLSS and FSR 3 upscaling are more effective, but this is one game where powering through the worst of its stuttering and framerate drops will take more than a musclebound graphics card. Not for the first time with an RE Engine game, Dragon’s Dogma 2 appears severely CPU-limited, so it really does demand a fully-upgraded rig to ward off sluggishness – especially at higher resolutions.
Improving performance isn’t a completely hopeless endeavour, but besides the FPS wobbles, there are some settings oddities that need navigating as well. I’ll cover all that and more in this guide; even if we can’t fix Dragon’s Dogma 2 ourselves, at least we can better understand its strangeness.
You know when you remember a game really fondly and instead of ageing alongside you, it becomes more modern in memory? The Dragon's Dogma 2 experience is, essentially, how I remember its predecessor Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. To me, DD2 feels like a remaster of the first, except it looks nicer, is more expansive, and features some rejigs to things like your AI pals.
Not that any of this is a bad thing! In fact, DD2's closeness to the original makes it just as much of a joy as the first, where your grand adventure isn't only grander, it's still at the whims of a world governed by chaotic physics and the passage of time. Quirks remain, for good and bad, but ultimately this is an RPG where you make travel plans and the game does it best to dash them. It never gets old.
It's deeply frustrating and disappointing when games get pulled from store shelves due to licenses expiring, and too few ever return. So it's great news that almost four years after Sega stopped selling Obsidian's fascinating spy thriller RPG Alpha Protocol on Steam due to music rights expiring, it has returned to sale on GOG. I'm always surprised that Alpha Protocol hasn't reached serious cult classic status because, as much as parts are distinctly wonky, the globetrotting sneak-o-shooter fizzes with ideas for intense dialogue, branching plot, and reputation systems with consequences. You do feel like a spy going up against the world, backed up only by shifty allies and a ridiculous pair of giant sunglasses.