Crytek’s name might not command quite the same respect as it did during the height of the Crysis series, but their free-to-play FPS Warface has maintained a steady (and slowly growing) player-base over the past year, in large part due to a steady influx of fresh content.

While the previous update to the game was a predictable me-too Battle Royale mode, the latest addition is a co-op story mission set in the irradiated wastes of Pripyat, and a bit of a genre-shift towards overt sci-fi silliness.

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The Metroidvania is perhaps one of the more tricky genres to nail down. With its very name coming from an amalgamation of two actually quite different Nintendo-based game series – Metroid and Castlevania – quite what qualifies is always up for debate. Hence, we suspect this could be one of the more controversial lists, when it leaves out a favourite game that someone else might argue fits the remit, but we decided did not. The important thing to remember is that we re right. And all of these games are brilliant.

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While we’re all curled up in our shared Christmas hibernation cocoon over the holidays, the site gets a little quieter. But fear not, for each day of the ho-ho-holidays there’s a Christmas cracker to pull! Oh, and of course, if you’re after more posts you might have missed, why not join our Supporter Program, and unlock dozens of new posts from the last year!

Meanwhile, you provide your own party hat, and we’ll provide the groaner of a gag.>

Q: Did you hear about the game developer who coughed up a hat? (more…)

Beholder was an interactive morality play not entirely dissimilar to Papers, Please about living the life of a prying landlord in a world where access to information can decide who lives and who dies. The sequel promises an interesting new angle on the scenario, putting you in the shoes of a minor government official with aspirations of power and control.

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As the owner/chosen human/minion of two twitchy felines, I’m fairly certain that at least 80% of the things shown in the trailer for Max & Maya: Cat Simulator are factually inaccurate, though I wish that wasn’t the case. The idea of cat civilization rising to fill the power vacuum in the event of a zombie apocalypse is an amusing one.

Due for release sometime in 2018, the debut title from OMG Studio, Max & Maya, looks to be a strange blend of influences and genres that, despite seemingly boundless potential for jank, has just enough polish and creativity on show in the trailer after the jump to pique my interest.

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This year it has felt like there’s been a string of quality games releases. Games that I m proud to support, whether it be for their tackling of serious subject matter or excellent writing or unique concepts that push the industry forward. Games that are already redefining preconceived standards of play.

In short: next year has a tough act to follow. (more…)

Sometimes it s good to go back to where you came from in open world games. When the content is the world, travelling through it can often feel like you re gobbling it up, every virtual kilometre a chunk of media you ve greedily consumed rather than occupied.

But they rarely give you much reason for retracing your steps. Levelled rewards are rarely worth the journey; storylines and quests are often all used up. Towns, jungles, villages are left frozen in time, a snapshot of less sophisticated times. Now their challenges are less keen, their demands on your expanded skillset simplistic. Their NPCs repeat the same declamations as they ever did, ignorant of your world-spanning achievements.

While these worlds are physically non-linear, they often feel the opposite, locations standing as staging posts on a winding trail rather than interconnected places. Then I played Assassin s Creed Origins, which goes out of its way to seed the places you ve barrelled through with reasons to return. (more…)

While we’re all curled up in our shared Christmas hibernation cocoon over the holidays, the site gets a little quieter. But fear not, for each day of the ho-ho-holidays there’s a Christmas cracker to pull! Oh, and of course, if you’re after more posts you might have missed, why not join our Supporter Program, and unlock dozens of new posts from the last year!

Meanwhile, you provide your own party hat, and we’ll provide the groaner of a gag.>

Q: What’s an agoraphobic’s least favourite game? (more…)

We asked a handful of our contributors to put together a list of their three favourite games from 2017. Their picks are running across the week while the rest of RPS slumbers.>

I’ve been thinking about time a lot recently – how we create and manipulate histories and the present in video games and in general – so you’ll forgive me if my end-of-year choices are a bit Back to the Futurey. (more…)

Update: To clarify, if you buy the game now you’ll receive access to episode 1 & 2 immediately, although the episode 2 launch isn’t >officially> happening until January 11th, when everything moves to Early Access.

Between Devil Daggers, Strafe, and the seeming eternal renaissance of Quake & Doom modding, it feels like gaming as a whole has come to terms with the idea that 90s FPS design wasn’t an evolutionary point that we’ve moved past so much as its own genre, which many are still experimenting with to this day.

One of the most promising of this fresh wave of neo-retro shooters is Dusk from solo developer David Szymanski and published by New Blood Interactive. The game had already impressed many critics with its first episode (available to play now if you preorder), and as of January 11th, the second act of the game will officially launch as the game transitions into Early Access.

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