South Korean publishers Nexon are investigating a recent bit of TikTok marketing for their free-to-play shooter The First Descendant, after players spotted some ads that feature AI-generated 'human' streamers bigging up the game. Well, we at least have to assume it's following that, as Nexon's statement omits mentioning AI in favour of the wonderfully nebulous phrase "certain irregularities".

If you've not seen one of these ads that look to have been posted by The First Descendant's official account, allow me to show you, because you'll see right quick why folks have been asking questions. Boom. There are further booms compiled into one Reddit post by user iHardlyTriHard down below.

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I was ready to skip MicroProse's just-announced Deck & Conn, on the grounds of it being far too early in the week for games that consist entirely of dials and rangefinders, but then a scrambled communique from Sin Vega alerted me to the fact that it's the work of Elissa Black, one of the peeps behind Objects In Space, which I think is one of my top five space games. So here we are.

At a glance, Deck & Conn is Objects In Space, but turn-based and minus Objects In Space's slightly distracting 3D background elements. That's to say, it's a testing strategickal simulation that seats you in front of a terrifying retro pixel display, and expects you to trace distress calls, manage your fretful crew, spin up torpedoes and so forth, all without bursting your puny monkey brain.

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Skibidi. Dop, dop, dop. Yes, yes. Skibidi. Double u. Neem, neem. This is the clarion call of the modern age, the infernal message brought unto our virgin ears by the Skibidi Toilets. No, wait, keep reading! It'll be worth it. Probably. After all, the word skibidi has now been added to the Cambridge Dictionary, and this is a reality we've all got to reckon with.

Skibidi Toilet, in case you've been living somewhere free from the influence of vertically-framed surrealism, is a long-running series of 3D animations by YouTuber Alexey 'DaFuq!?Boom!' Gerasimov. It generally conveys the tale of a great war between a legion of heads protruding from loos and an army of folks with cameras for heads, with help from Half-Life 2 assets and inspiration from the annals of Garry's Mod machinima. Any 12 year olds you know probably can't get enough of it. Or think it's lame because they've already moved on to the next thing>.

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The curse of plausibility and coherence lies heavy across this realism-centred artform. These days, you can't even give a platform character a woolly hat without first devising an in-game textile industry with appropriate supply chains, and a whole supporting cast of millworkers with names like Arthur Worsted and Jimmy Shuttlecock.

I prefer the disconnectedness of Psycutlery, in which you fight using a telekinetic spork, buy things with frogspawn, heal by eating toothpaste, and checkpoint progress by carving blocks of stone into statues of yourself, using the spork. The in-game reasoning for all this is basically "because developer Luke Tarlowe has the imagination of a Picasso and the attention span of a goldfish". Don't call it CRAZY. Call it refreshingly uninhibited and also, reminiscent of, Decap Attack and Ristar. Also, call it free.

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Last week, soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers got a patch that rendered a number of its bosses unkillable, seemingly in response to pressure from some Chinese players. For those who aren't keen on the patch's changes, which particularly transforms the challenge you'll face in the game's fourth region, there's now a mod dedicated to undoing them by letting you roll back to a previous version.

For a more in-depth view of the changes patch 1.5 made and what they mean for the game, it's well worth reading our Jeremy's story on it from last week. The short version is that a number of big foes associated with the Ming dynasty have been made to fall down in exhaustion when you defeat them, rather than being killed. As you might imagine, this has implications not just in terms of the minute-to-minute experience of playing Wuchang, but also the story it tells.

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We’re always on the lookout for deals on the best SSDs for gaming, and after extolling the virtues of the Samsung 990 Pro earlier this year, the 4TB version is down to its lowest price of 2025 at Amazon.

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Hello all! And a very happy This Week to you. I'm back from break just in time for Gamescom. Gamescom! *Broadway overture kicks in* A time of booths and blaggardry! Of queues and carousing! Of flinching away from cosplayers promising Free Hugs! Of getting caught in a human logjam between the major exhibition halls and the lavatories! Of miniature walled villages operated by triple-A publishers, hosting their own local culture of finger food! Of strung-out crypto investors filling the alcoves with their musical cries of "DOGECOIN FOR SALE, DOGECOIN FOR SALE!" Of waifu bodypillows and army recruiters! Of finding the event's secret best game tucked away among the b2b stands! Of long walks back to the hotel across the bridge of locks, wondering how it ever came to this!

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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! That's two weeks in a row now, which I've decided is enough for me to not have to caveat or lampshade the word 'regular', except obviously in this specific instance. We are back 4eva, in the Blakean Infinite sense, which is my favourite reference for making my fecklessness seem profound.

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Sundays are for realising that it's been years since you looked behind your wardrobe. You gently lean the unwieldy thing away from the wall, centuries worth of grey-faced dust kings cursing at you as they're unseated from the thrones upon which they've stocially squatted since the last great cleansing. Oh, there he is. It's Adrian Edmondson. You ask him if he still considers himself a young one in spirit. He bellows at you to call an ambulance. You gently manoueuvre the wardrobe back into place.

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Another week has fallen into the Maw. Theoretically, that means we're now one week closer to the release of Silksong. As if such words mean anything to any of us anymore.

Here's what we're all playing this weekend instead!

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