Deck Nine, currently responsible for heading up the Life is Strange series having handled spin-off True Colours and remasters of the first two games, have been accused of fostering a toxic workplace home to sexism, mismanagement, crunch and abusive treatment of staff left to linger by the studio’s higher-ups.
Relic Entertainment, the freshly-independent developers of Company of Heroes, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Age of Empires IV, have confirmed a number of job losses. The layoffs come just a week after the studio announced their sale from former owners Sega, returning them to independence after two decades.
I think we might be nearing the point where there are Too Many Retro Zeldalikes, and specifically Too Many Link’s Awakealikes – recent candidates include Isles Of Sea And Sky and Blossom Tales - but I’m definitely willing to go adventuring with Castaway, in which you are a spaceman called Martin who has crashlanded on an island’s worth of gently rounded, 8-bit scenery.
Martin’s goal is to rescue his pet dog, which doesn’t sound like it’ll take too long – the “concise and delightful” story mode boasts just three bosses. But lurking behind that all-too-innocent story mode there is a Biblical terror in the shape of a 50-floor tower, made up of increasingly challenging trials. Link’s Awakening with a sort of Bloody Palace component? Yeah, I’ll take that.
Fulqrum Publishing have just released a story trailer for New Arc Line, a new steampunk fantasy RPG in which dragons rub shoulders with zeppelins, and dwarves are as abundant as air pollution. I hadn't heard of it before and am quite interested, partly because the game sports some wonderfully mangled and colourful dystopian maps, and partly because it's a story of immigrants trying to find their way to an inevitably deceptive "shining city of progress", rather than the typical Chosen One fare.
Your family specifically are afflicted by a fatal disease. Your initial and perhaps overall goal in New Arc Line is to find a cure, of course, but who knows, along the way you might have to "get your hands dirty", "rise from the bottom" and become some sort of absolute bastard. Take us away, trailer!
In the dingy portside taverns that pop up, seemingly unbidden, like roiling blisters along the coastal towns of the Old World, the name Count Noctilus is spoken only in hushed whispers by those blasted enough on grog to forget themselves. They are sure to be swiftly rebuked by their fellows for playing dice with fate, those still of sound mind rightly afeared that the name may echo through the brine and tickle the ears of the dread captain himself. On the seas he calls kingdom, Noctilus is without equal, without mercy, and utterly without hesitation. For what has a dead man left to fear?
He has but one fatal flaw; he is deathly afraid of ever leaving his comfortable ship to touch ‘pon the verdant grass of land. I intend to honour this. Do you hear me, lubbers? I will show my strategy game mastery by conquering Total War: Warhammer 3’s world, and I will never touch grass.
Ever since Lords Of The Realm, I've had a soft spot for feudalism sims. Although faux-medieval games are common, there aren't all that many about regular people and regular concerns. Even LotR was increasingly about battles and armies as it went on, rather than the unique management parts.
But in Under The Yoke, you're just a serf. You want to make something of yourself, but it's about a regular person managing his life, not some unlikely "adventurer", whatever that means. So you'll mostly be toiling, and foraging, and genuinely having way more actual skills than us superior modern folk. And despite some UI issues and rough edges, it's weirdly compelling.
Friends! Jaegers! Evas! Lend me your radar dishes or cybernetic ear trumpets. Developers Storm Trident and publishers Forever Entertainment have popped up a Steam demo for their Front Mission 2 remake. Tucked within its coils there are two whole levels, Rimian Base and Batari Forest, together with a Garage where you can customise your Wanzer and access to the in-game Network menu.
"Who are you calling a Wanzer?" you bellow. Calm down and stop waving that chair. A wanzer is a mech, in short. And Front Mission, by the way, is a 90s tactical RPG series from G-Craft and Square, both of which have since been assimilated into the terrifying robot octopus that is present-day Square Enix. Much as with Final Fantasy Tactics games, Front Mission games are stagey political thrillers about countries and corporations and other factions waging perpetual war upon each other, with players thrust into the mix as mech squad leaders.
For a handheld PC, the Steam Deck benefits an awful lot from having a mouse and keyboard plugged into it, and nothing enables this marriage of portable and peripheral like one of the best Steam Deck docks. And it’s not just USB connectivity that gets a boost – external displays, rock-solid Ethernet connections for game downloads, and power delivery all make dock usage a preferable alternative to simply hooking up Bluetooth accessories. Along with a microSD card (and possibly a better case), these stand/hub combos are definitely among the tools that any regular Steam Deck wielder should have.
As a valued RPS supporter, you’re likely aware that you possess legal ownership of the fleeting thoughts I have right before falling asleep at night. It’s actually in the T&C, right under the bit about Horace’s claim on your organs. Good news: such interruptions are plentiful, and so too will be content. Here's my latest:
Am I doomed, I asked myself, to live in wishful longing for the myriad gaming experiences I could have had if I didn’t tend to get obsessed with a few specific games, both digital and tabletop, that take up all my leisure time?
Obviously I didn’t phrase it like that. It was more like ‘whawhaohhnoo’.
Yesterday, if you can believe it, marked the tenth anniversary of The Elder Scrolls Online. That's a whole decade of tromping across Tamriel with your mates, and a whole decade in which I've watched tentatively from the sidelines, thinking about dipping my toes into the MMO pool, but never quite building up the courage (or lining the walls of my bank account) to fully take the plunge. I've heard all the horror stories about starting a new MMO from other members of the RPS Treehouse - particularly when it comes to the lore-laden shackles of World Of Warcraft and the bloated MMO-service-hybrid Destiny - and quite honestly, it's enough to put me off them all entirely. But The Elder Scrolls Online might just be the exception to the rule.
I spent a portion of the game's tenth birthday yesterday playing Gold Road, its upcoming eighth Chapter expansion. In it, you're whisked over to the West Weald, an autumnal, sun-dappled region whose main city hub, Skingrad, will no doubt feel familiar to seasoned Oblivionites. Seemingly overnight, a strange jungle has sprung up on the city's outskirts, uprooting the nearby villages of the neighbouring high elves and causing havoc as strange beasts pour out of its curling root beds. There are more mysteries to unravel here, too, including the emergence of the new Daedric Prince, Ithelia (revealed at the end of last year's Necrom Chapter), and much more besides - too much to realistically take in during a 90-minute preview session, or for this MMO newbie to fully comprehend the significance of. But there's something about Gold Road and its gnarled-up jungles, strange cults and fantastical beasts that's definitely made me want to make a return journey here when it launches on PC on June 3rd.