There are few occasions where a game tells me it's combining two genres that typically don't go together and it convinces me it's worth paying attention to, but Blanksword, a roguelike RPG, is quite different. In it, you are Blank, an angel stabbed in the head, brain destroyed, who somehow managed to survive such an ordeal - albeit without any memory of who you were. And now, you are on a quest through a series of islands governed by "Literally God" in order to figure out your mysterious past.

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There is nothing inherently awful in a game being obscenely long, in fact it can be quite pleasurable to get to know a digital world so intimately. The issue is that I am an "adult" who has to "work" to pay my "bills" and "taxes," so I don't always have time for such things. How some of you manage to fit in multiple playthroughs of Persona games will always be an enigma to me. But, as I sit here in my despair, along comes 34EVERLAST, a game designed to be beaten in "as little as 10 minutes," expressly designed for "busy working adults."

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About a month ago, it was announced that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 would only feature four different clans in its base game, with two extra clans coming as day one DLC. This, unsurprisingly, was received like a wet fart on a hot Sunday at church, with publisher Paradox later saying that they would make "adjustments" based on the response. And as confirmed in a press release and new trailer, said adjustments are the fact that these two clans, Lasombra and Toreador, will be included in the base game at launch.

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While everyone complains about the technical state that Borderlands 4 released in, whether it’s choppy performance or the lack of an FOV slider on consoles, I found myself on the much happier end of the spectrum. Aside from the gruellingly slow start, where I was drowning in weak pistols and absolutely no other weapon types, playing this game had me smiling like an idiot about how it’s the best Borderlands yet.

Admittedly, it’s a series I’ve never really clicked with, all previous attempts having ended in boredom. Borderlands 4, though, is different. Almost everything about it, from the world design to the power variety of the playable Vault Hunters, has been improved or refined, to the point where I’m actually annoyed that I have to stop playing so that I can write up this review. This game is consuming me>.

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Lost Skies has left its early access release today, entering into its 1.0 version of the game. If you feel slightly surprised by that news, so do I, because it only launched into early access in April of this year, pretty much exactly five months ago. Every game will do early access differently of course, but it seems like Lost Skies could have done with a bit more time in the oven.

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Earlier this year, Microsoft laid off a lot of people and cancelled projects at various subsidiary game studios, as part of what company CEO Satya Nadella has whimsically called the "enigma of success". Elder Scrolls Online developers ZeniMax Online Studios were among those making cuts - they buried an unannounced project codenamed Blackbird, which was reportedly a nimble MMO shooter of some kind. In the process, studio head Matt Firor also left the company. Unionised staff members have described the reductions as "inhumane", demoralising and counterproductive, with one worker commenting that "a lot of practical knowledge just disappeared overnight".

Now, studio game director Rich Lambert and game director Nick Giacomini have been chatting a little about where ZeniMax Online Studios is going next. They still have plenty of ideas for new game projects, apparently, but for the moment, the focus appears to be on streamlining the update process for ESO.

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Supermassive Games have put out a demo for Little Nightmares 3, so you can give the spooky co-op puzzler a whirl before it arrives in October. "Step into the Necropolis", the studio say. Go on then, that sounds like it has zero potential to end badly.

As our Nic conveyed earlier this year, Little Nightmares 3's coming out October 10th. That date was unaffected by Supermassive laying off up to 36 people and delaying interstellar horror Directive 8020 in July.

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Yaaarrr. There be a fresh report about the long-rumoured Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remake Ubisoft have still yet to publicly acknowledge. It claims the publisher are currently looking to release the retooled piracy game in early 2026, as well as providing more alleged details as to how the remake'll differ from the original.

This Black Flag remake's been reported to be in development several times over the past couple of years, with the voice actor of original protagonist Edward Kenway alleging that he got in trouble for being recorded teasing it at a convention earlier this year.

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