I’m not that keen on extraction games like Arc Raiders. The last two I played at length were Tom Clancy's The Division (specifically its Survival mode), which features possibly my favourite videogame piles of trash, and Hunt: Showdown, which features possibly my favourite (i.e. the absolute worst) videogame spider. I just don't see the point of a loot commute, even with other players around to add spice. Still, I do think I'll spend more time in Arc – out now on Steam, EGS and the Microsoft Store - after losing a few hours to a pre-release multiplayer session last week. Amongst other things, it has an enticing buried city and a neat sliding mechanic.

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GOG continue to conquer the world of old games you either remember fondly or have totally forgotten about. They've added 18 new ones to their preservation program this week, with the latest arrivals being the Resident Evil HD Remaster and Resident Evil 0.

It's good to see the storefront's preservation efforts keep on expand, given they've recently revaled that this program's been a tougher undertaking than originally envisioned thus far. Things that're worth doing are rarely easy, though, are they? Well, ok, maybe having a cheeky biscuit with your supper is still worth doing.

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Amazon have cancelled their second attempt at a Lord Of The Rings MMO as part of recent mass layoffs, according to a now-former senior gameplay engineer at Amazon Games.

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You can now retrieve Fargoth's ring and get in hot water for not-so-sneakily pilfering someone's sujamma in a mod which is aiming to port Morrowind into Elden Ring. This and more is shown off in the first update video the modder leading the charge has shared since first unveiling their impressive undertaking.

That initial reveal was about a month ago, when modder AnotherPlus lifted the Vvardenveil on the fact they'd managed to transfer Morrowind's landscape across into the FromSoft game. While there are still plenty of placeholders and bits in need of work, they and their team look to be making great progress thus far.

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Once upon a time, the great graven cave troll Terry Cavanagh rose from his slumbers, scratched the opals from his beard of woven copper, and said to himself: "Today I will make a 3D egg platform game in which a 3D egg goes platforming, like my hit game VVVVVV, but 3D and with eggs." And because there was no-one around to say "WTF, Terry" or "perhaps you are just hungry" or "Mr Cavanagh, the egg's paucity of external appendages and senses wholly disallow it as a means of self-directed locomotion", that is exactly what he did.

We are all the richer for it, because Egg (subtitle "why not be an egg") is eggcellent. It's also free and playable right now in a browser on Itch.io.

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For as video gamey a series as The Matrix is, it is a touch surprising there have only been a handful of actual games. Obviously the one that makes most sense is The Matrix Online, what other genre but an MMO could The Matrix could be? Well, there's also Enter The Matrix, which is basically Max Payne, but you still have to wonder what else could have been. Especially because The Wachowskis literally pitched the idea of Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima making a Matrix game directly to Konami.

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Right, what do we have here, a new game called The Florist, 'ey? About a woman delivering a beautiful flower arrangement to a lakeside town? Well, surely this is one of those wholesome, cosy games I've been hearing about! Nope! It is, in fact, a survival horror, and not the kind that's trying to trick you like I just made a less than half-arsed attempt at.

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Because that sacred line called profit must always go up, we are seeing more and more game studios announce their intention to incorporate various forms of AI tech. PUBG publisher Krafton just recently referred to themselves as an AI-first company, the big wigs up top at EA are reportedly pushing for it hard, it is, seemingly, unfortunately, inevitable. Which makes Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick's comments on it ever so slightly surprising - but only slightly, we'll get back to that.

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Ring ring. Ring Ring. Ring ring. The stern and bespectacled manager of Blake Manor's hotel appears for the eighth time. You're looking a bit narked there mate, I, the investigatorman, observe. Yes, he says yet again, I'm a bit stressed and busy on account of our telegram machine having gone kaput. Makes sense, I reply, can't think of any other reasons why you might be pissed off. He shuffles back into his office for exactly five seconds. Ring ring.

You're being haunted in the demo for spooky detective puzzler The Séance of Blake Manor, which released in full earlier this week, having had a demo up on Steam for a good while. However, I can confirm having taken in the first night of that demo that you're also give the power to do the haunting yourself.

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