“Using 2D grid-based movements, players are invited to lead an expedition charting the depths of an otherworldly labyrinth,” Square Enix say. “Plan and prepare to overcome numerous obstacles, battles, and defeat monsters in a bid to outwit the formidable game system and reach the deepest level of the Dungeon. Strategise to survive!” They note that it uses a “newly polished and refined iteration” of Final Fantasy’s ye olde Active Time Battle system, which Ito created way back when....

Valkyrie Elysium is quite different from the rest of the series, mind. They’ve been turn-based tactical affairs, while this is a real-time stabby affair Squeenix call an action-RPG. It’s made by different developers too: Soleil (makers of Naruto To Boruto: Shinobi Striker) rather than Tri-Ace, who did the first three. “The trailer provides a first glimpse of the game’s protagonist, a young Valkyrie who is entrusted with the fate of the world by the All-Father, the highest of gods and ruler of all creation,” Squeenix’s announcement says....

Matsuda addressed some of the public pushback in his letter, claiming that new tech usually receives initial backlash before becoming widely accepted. “New technologies and frameworks lead to innovation, but they also create considerable confusion,” he wrote. “Having ridden out such societal tides, some such technologies and frameworks gradually become part of people’s lives, eventually giving rise to new businesses and growth.” However, Matsuda did admit that “The market was driven more by speculative investors than by gamers” at this point....

Eidos Montreal, if you don’t know, are the studio previously responsible for Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. In fairness, Eidos Montreal’s last game was leading development of Shadow Of The Tomb Raider in 2018, and since then they’ve been handling additional development on Marvel’s Avengers. I have no reason to think they’re returning to their earlier history, which also included 2014’s Thief reboot. And yet, I want to believe....

In the video above, James and I ask Katharine all the important questions you’d expect to give to a fresh faced Steam Deck owner. What do you think of the battery life? How many visual novels have you already installed? Do you use the track pads? No seriously, Katharine, just how many visual novels do you have on there already? The result is a very nice conversation about the Steam Deck between someone who’s just begun their handheld PC journey and a relative veteran who has been using one since just before launch....

The very first Steam Game Festival took place last December, running alongside The Game Awards with 13 demos for players to get their hands on. The next one came in spring, and only gave us like, 40 demos. If they’re trying to beat that summer number for the autumn event, I fear we may be faced with thousands of the damn things. Pray for us. News of the upcoming autumn festival comes from good old Geoff Keighley, who revealed on Twitter that Valve would be hosting yet another Game Fest....

The new galaxy shapes that Orion brings into the game don’t seem essential, but they’re a nice addition. Mucking about with different galactic styles was always something I appreciated in Star Trek: Birth Of The Federation as a kid, so I’m pretty happy to see the option work its way into Stellaris all these years later. You can now set your galaxy to either 3-arm or 6-arm spiral, one called barred that looks a bit like those vampire shurikens Blade throws, starburst, the very swirly cartwheel, and spoked....

“Help your once nomadic clan settle in a promised and fertile land,” Soda Den say. “By connecting with nature you’ll develop Ideas to evolve, enrich your culture, relationships, and discover the mysteries of Pacha, mother nature.” Pacha has all the usual Stardewbut elements you’d expect: farming, mining, raising animals, and befriending townsfolk. With its stone age setting, you’ll have to actually evolve your clan by discovering ideas like irrigation, animal taming, and new tools....

“This is a greatly enhanced edition of Sunless Skies, containing all additions and improvements we’ve made to the game since launch as well as many more completely new ones,” the devs say. Some of the bigger changes include the reworked Starvation mechanics, which will let players find “a range of increasingly dubious gastronomic options available to them as desperation grows.” Character progression will have a new interface, you’ll be able to choose from a wider range of facets (characteristics you choose that define your Captain’s past), as well as continue improving your stats past the level 20 cap....

Arise’s story focuses on two warring planets, and its two protagonists are a male slave from the medieval world of Dahna and a woman from the technologically advanced world of Rena. Those are the characters you’re seeing in the trailer above. This is the 17th game in the Tales series, which began in 1995. The last entry was Tales Of Berseria, which we liked quite a bit when it came to PC in 2017....

A post on the Temtem site recaps the past year of early access development, and makes a reasonable case for it not having been a quiet year for the game. Despite no major expansion since the addition of Kisiwa island in July, there have been a lot of other content updates. Those include ranked matchmaking, player clubs, housing, weekly and daily quests, and a lot more. The developers explained (in a different post) that they felt these additions were necessary in light of player feedback, even though they deviated from the initially announced roadmap....

Re-Logic announced the date today in a tweet with an image of the new world generation screen for Terraria. You can spot the new Master mode wot’s supposed to be the ultra hard kick in the pants even more difficult than expert. You can also peep something called “Journey” mode as well, which Re-Logic haven’t explained. It’s on the opposite end of the difficulty option spectrum and its icon is a bunny face so I’d have to imagine this will be the ultra easy pat on the head mode....

Gravity gloves - Half-Life: Alyx Alyx Vance, well-known resistance operative and sentient wry smile, has a very useful pair of gloves. They can pick things up from metres away with a flick. Ammo in the gutter? No, it is in your hand. Dropped your marker pen in the middle of a trigonometry lesson? No problem, just apply some air-snatching Jedi laziness, et voila. If these gloves could only pierce the sickly veil of videogames and slop gently into our reality, life would see many improvements....

Lower Undead Burg - Dark Souls It’s like Undead Burg but lower. This is a cramped streak of dwellings full of backstabbing thieves and bonfires heaped with crackling cadavers. If you thought having to empty your pockets to a twisted zombie merchant who trades in literal souls was a grubby affair up in Lah-dee-dah Burg, wait until you meet the head of Lowburg’s neighbourhood watch, the Capra Demon. He can be found glaring furiously at the doorway of a walk-in closet where he routinely exercises his two beloved hounds, Lockjaw and Bites-him-some-shins....

At this reduced price, you’re paying $34 per core, which is a pretty incredible value when you consider just how strong each of those cores are. Ryzen 5000’s new core architecture and vastly increased L3 cache makes them keen performers, with a 20% increase in single-threaded performance over the previous-gen Ryzen 3000 chips and significantly more over Ryzen 1000 and 2000 CPUs - making this a perfect upgrade if you’re still using one of these older processors....

Happily, following a year of tweaks and additions, The Anacrusis is in a much better place. Even if that place is still turtleneck-deep in extraterrestrial viscera. Ahead of the game’s first anniversary, I poked developers Stray Bombay for a chat on how their early access approach is working out, the impact of long-awaited mod tools, and what’s next for this most stylish of space shooters. “We had a little bit of a rough launch”, admits studio co-founder and CEO Chet Faliszek....

Yes, it’s still pretty similar to Left 4 Dead, but is home to a few things that help separate it from its zombified brethren. To test this stuff out, we had a full team of four in our hands-on preview session at the very end of last year – myself, Imogen (RPS in peace), Katharine, and Chet himself, who steered us through encounters with supreme patience. All in all, we sampled a ‘full run’, so a total of four levels, each with lots of, “Oh god, oh no,” moments....

That trailer shows a lot of the city, and some of the architectural styles you can employ, but doesn’t show much of the nuts and bolts - the brick and mortar, maybe - of how you actually do it. From what I can gather from the game’s official site (which often fails to load for me), you can customise the city block by block. You can bulldoze plots you think should be vacant, select what type of structure should be on each plot - building, plaza, park, or parking lot - and you can then customise building height, roof shape, materials, and elements of the building facade....

The Vulcan 120 may have fallen to $90 here and there in the past, but there’s a very good chance that the extra $2 discount technically makes this a new low. And what a keyboard you’d be getting in exchange: a crisp, fast, keenly crafted slab of metal and half-height keycaps that further enhance the sense of responsiveness. This model comes with a detachable wrist rest too, not to mention customisable RGB lighting and dedicated media controls....

Bennett is a very versatile character who can be built as a support or a DPS. We’ll cover both builds in this guide, which will show you how to create the best Bennett build in Genshin Impact. Below we’ll cover everything you need to know about Bennett, including wishing, weapons, artifacts, ascension materials, talents, abilities, and constellations. How to build Bennett as healer support/DPS in Genshin Impact Best weapon: Skyward Blade Alternatives: Favonius Sword, Festering Desire Regardless of if you’re building Bennett as a support or a DPS, it’s smart to equip him with a weapon that has added Energy Recharge stats....