I was towards the end of my Atomfall demo when it clicked for me - clicked like the gravelly report of a shell entering the breech of my rusty yet devastating shotgun. Guided by the deteriorated state of my weapons, and by James' Gamescom write-up, I’d been trying to play Rebellion’s alt-Sixties open world FPS like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., hoarding my ammo and avoiding unnecessary bloodshed as I crept around an English woodland full of druids ranting about atomic fungus. I’d made it to the heart of the druid encampment - a National Trust castle of the kind that would typically be 30% wedding venue, 50% giftshop - only to reach a dead end in a banqueting hall. I had a key for a lock I couldn’t find. Perhaps it lay in a tent outside the castle, or in one of the surrounding caves?

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Monster Hunter Wilds is the fastest-selling game in Capcom's history. It continues to lord over the Steam charts, with peaks that might cause Counter-Strike 2 to glance momentarily down from its Olympus of user-created hats, and while people are still booting the dung out of the PC version's performance, verdicts upon the beast-punching as a whole are glowing.

To suggest that now is the time to go back to formula is probably pure contrarianism, but Wilds makes my brain itch. Building on (and hopefully not just recapping) Brendy's excellently ambivalent Monster Hunter Wilds review, I think the series is balancing on the edges of contradictions that extend throughout its design, from the combat through the user interface to the world and narrative themes. I think it's been doing that for years, in fact, but Wilds, for me, is where Monster Hunter's confusion about itself has come to a head.

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$511.78 (was $879.99)

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When you die in Absolum, you are literally reborn from the glowing womb of a giant pregnant lady. This is not how beat 'em ups normally go. The newly announced left-to-right puncher from the developers of Streets Of Rage 4 plans to inject a bunch of roguelike fungus into the bulging musculature of the classic arcade brawler, then dress it in a big fantasy frog suit that's been handcrafted by a traditional animation studio. It's a tight squeeze, but having played an hour of a preview build, it certainly looks the part. Although I order you never to use the term "rogue 'em up" to describe it, an explosively upsetting term publisher Dotemu has cheekily tried to invent.

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A kink is a twist in a rope, an unconventional sexual or non-sexual practice, a spasm, a bend that might interfere with smooth operation, an eccentricity, a source of pleasure and revulsion. A kink can be anything, as long as it's not the done thing. Monster Hunter Wilds, meanwhile, is a game in which you hunt monsters in the wilds. One of the story campaign's odder beats is that you must continually seek permission to slaughter the creatures (and turn them into weapons and gear) from the ostensibly conservation-minded Monster Hunting guild. Specifically, you'll need the blessing of your fresh-faced escort, Alma.

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Another Steam Next Fest is drawing to a close, having had to compete with Monster Hunter Wilds for PC-beholding eyeballs – yet losing none of its knack for highlighting interesting and offbeat games set for future release. A quick dangle of our indie demo astrolabe indicates we’re a few months off the next >Next Fest, though at the time of posting, there are still a couple of precious hours to download and try out the best samplers that this wintery showcase has to offer. Here are our favourites from the past week, and if you’ve played something you think deserves some more attention, why not share it in the comments?

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If you’ve been trying to buy an RTX 5080, you already know it’s nearly impossible to find. Nvidia’s new GPU has been selling out instantly, with standalone cards unavailable or listed at outrageous resale prices. That’s why this deal from Dell is worth a look. The Alienware Aurora R16 gaming PC includes an RTX 5080 for just $2,399.99 right now.

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Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! "Nic, you selfless paragon. You champion of the people. You prince among men. I can't believe you put your favourite column on pause for several weeks to let me finish my book!". Please. I'm sure you would have done the same, were you also a dashing genius with a moustache powerful enough to crack the pyramids.

To ring in the resurrection with style, it's The Norwood Suite, Betrayal At Club Low, and Moves Of The Diamond Hand's Cosmo D! Cheers Cosmo! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?

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Sundays are for asking for forgiveness, since I missed Sunday Papers entirely last weekend. Alas, I was stricken by a deep malaise, but I return now with renewed vigour and another roundup of links to good writing from across the web. Some of the good writing is even about games this time.

For the LA Review Of Books, Celine Nguyen reviewed Building SimCity, Chaim Gingold's book about the creation of SimCity.

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Thank you all for your wonderful soundtrack suggestions earlier this week! I'll be gleefully ploughing my way through them over the coming workdays. But now isn't the time for that! Weekends are for the playing, not the listening of the playing!

Here's what we're all clicking on this weekend.

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