What if EVE Online was a bit less sci-fi, and a lot more medieval? You would, in theory, get Pax Dei, a game that first entered early access in June last year. Responses to it so far appear to be, well, mixed, but as seems to be quite common with These Kinds Of Games, everyone that's played it appears to be going through some kind of Stockholm syndrome kind of situation, as the game is still going. It's going so far as to launch into 1.0 in fact, and developer Mainframe Industries have even put a date to it.
Just Cause developers Avalanche Studios are cutting staff and closing their Liverpool, UK-based studio following Microsoft's cancellation of co-op smuggling game Contraband.
It's been a good half a year since FuturLab announced PowerWash Simulator 2, their follow-up to the very popular, and seemingly quite satisfying, original game. There's been various developer logs and tidbits of details shared in the intervening days, weeks, and months, but the one thing that's been missing so far is a release date. That was supposed to be revealed today, according to FuturLab themselves, but the game isn't quite ready on all platforms yet. Instead, they're offering up a demo so that you can get a taste of this newer, shinier powerwashing.
Insert joke about London calling here, as Fallout: London developers Team FOLON have just released the first of the mod's planned three DLC packs. This one's called Rabbit and Pork and brings with it 30 new quests, plus a laundry list of that includes a bunch of NPCs, extra gear, and stability fixes.
As we covered the other day, to dive into the DLC and have the least chance of running into any bugs that could be lurking, you'll want to start a fresh run through post-apoclayptic Blighty.
It’s been a month since Gamescom 2025 lowered its shutters and sent ninety thousand nerds squeezing into the tiny Cologne tram station outside. In newsworthiness terms, a month’s time is roughly equivalent to five millennia, so this roundup of all the games I played at the show (but haven’t already covered elsewhere) comes with an admission of tardiness.
Also: excuses. Who knew Silksong would come out while I was still unpacking?
Two thoughts kept occurring to me while playing through the first few hours of Baby Steps, the new masocore QWOPlike from Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy. The first was a Dara Ó Briain bit where the Irish comedian talks about hiring a personal trainer and, after complaining about being sore following a workout, he's told "That's because you're using muscles you haven't used in years!". To this, he replies: "Then why the fuck are we wasting our time with those> muscles?!"
"That's not a minotaur, that's just a guy with horns," yells one of the YouTube commenters on the reveal trailer of Minos. They might be right with their Monty Python-esque accusation, but regardless of how much the maze-building roguelike and its developers Artificer have put the cat amongst the Greek mythology-loving pigeons, the demo that's currently out for it is good fun.
Dark Ties, the Like A Dragon spin-off game that's set to arrive alongside Yakuza Kiwami 3 next year, was originally just going to be a video. That was, obviously, until devs RGG studio opted to let folks wander around in the shoes of Yakuza 3 antagonist Yoshitaka Mine, whose karaoke singing to a picture of a follically-challenged gangster they've now also explained.
Yesterday, a group of moneyfolk including private equity firm Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, and Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners unveiled plans to acquire Electronic Arts for an estimated $55 billion.
The buyers are committing $36 billion of their own equity (briefly and inexpertly, "equity" is the value of your assets after you deduct anything you owe), including the value of the PIF's existing investments in EA. They're making up the rest of the total thanks to a $20 billion loan from JPMorgan Chase Bank. How will they manage that massive debt? According to the Financial Times, who cite unnamed insiders, they're gambling on the deployment of generative AI tools as a gigantic cost-saving measure.