Author: Game Infliction

I Just Want To Be Single!! is an aromantic dating sim that’s rewriting the rulebook

It begins as every Japan-set dating sim worth its salt does — with a transfer student.

It’s Aya’s first day at the ominously-named ‘Love-Love All-Girls High School’, and they’re (understandably) a little nervous. Shy and socially anxious, they hope they’ll manage to make a friend or two. Turns out their classmates are eager – perhaps a little too eager – to get acquainted. Aya is set upon by a stampede of besotted young women, but Aya doesn’t have romance on the brain themselves. “I Just Want To Be Single!” they yell. Cue chirpy acapella theme music.

I Just Want To Be Single!!: Season One, recently released on Steam in Early Access, is a game you’d be forgiven for overlooking on a Steam Store that today is packed with visual novels from Western indie devs. A handful carry a reverence and understanding of the medium (the excellent VA-11 HALL-A, for example), but many take a mocking, ironic approach, or exist primarily to titillate, such that fans have grown wary. Tsundere Studio’s debut, I Just Want To Be Single!! stands out from this crowd.

Billed as ‘aromantic, asexual, and nonbinary’, I Just Want To Be Single!!’s player protagonist, Aya, is a reflection of its mononymous lead developer ‘m.’. “I’m still figuring things out about myself and this game is an extension of that,” m. tells me over Discord. “The story in this game is largely about finding yourself and who you want to become.”

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Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour Trailer Highlights New Minigames & Tech Demos

Welcoming us all soon.

It’s the week of Switch 2’s launch and Nintendo is marking the occasion in the only way that seems fit… a new overview trailer for one of the console’s hottest topics: the £7.99 / $9.99 Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour.

The five-minute trailer was shared via the Nintendo Today! app in Japan (we expect to see it crop up in other regions soon enough), and it gives a rundown of everything we can expect from the tutorial software.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Skyrim Grandma Is Playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered — and Chat Is Helping Out

Beloved YouTuber Shirley Curry, colloquially known as the Skyrim Grandma, has started playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered — and chat is giving her all the help she needs.

In a video titled ‘Oblivion Remastered #1 Learning’ posted to her 1.3 million subscriber YouTube channel, the 89-year-old began her journey in Bethesda’s recently released remaster having just left the tutorial area.

“Good morning grandkids. This is Oblivion Remastered,” Curry began. “I am out of all that creepy jail and dungeon and sewers and all that mess you have to come through for so long before you ever get to come out of that into the world. This is the first thing that I see.”

Curry is struggling somewhat with Oblivion Remastered, asking for chat’s help on things like how to show her character from a third-person perspective. She spends a lot of her time looking around, exploring, and getting to grips with Oblivion Remastered’s movement, control scheme, and mechanics. And yes, lockpicking is a real problem. But isn’t it for everyone?

Shirley, if you’re reading this, be sure to check out our comprehensive guide to everything you’ll find in Oblivion Remastered, including an expansive Interactive Map, complete Walkthroughs for the Main Questline and every Guild Quest, How to Build the Perfect Character, Things to Do First, every PC Cheat Code, and much more!

A second video, titled ‘Oblivion Remastered #2 Still Learning,’ was also mostly about getting to grips with the game. “I guess you’re gonna have to hear an awful lot of complaining from me,” Curry said while in a cave infested with goblins and giant rats.

But through it all are comments from helpful fans who are posting tips for Curry’s first few hours in the game.

“Wow, Grandma Shirley! Welcome to TES4!!!” reads one such comment, which Curry acknowledged with a ‘heart.’

“If you use keyboard, you can change from 1st Person to 3rd Person by clicking the mouse wheel button. On controller, it’s the same as Skyrim: click the right joystick. Lockpicking is the worst in Oblivion! I just spam the auto attempt until I reach level 10. If I run out of lockpicks, I run out of lockpicks. Then I go to Nocturnal’s Shrine and do her quest to be rewarded with the unbreakable Skeleton Key. Auto attempt to successfully unlock then becomes simple! There are also open lock spells, and a doom stone (like a standing stone in Skyrim) that will give you a lesser power to open a lock once a day. It’s the Tower Stone. You have to activate it at night, and you can see it glowing from the Waterfront area of the Imperial City.”

Here’s another helpful comment: “Glad to see your [sic] starting to get the hang of it Shirley, if you click wait you can choose what time of day you’d like but you can’t near enemies.” Curry responded to that one to say thanks for the tip.

Last year, Curry announced her retirement from making gameplay videos after nine years. At the time she said she no longer enjoyed the process, but it seems she wasn’t able to stay away for long.

Curry’s legacy with The Elder Scrolls franchise is already immortalised, of course. She has long since gained recognition from other members of the Skyrim community and even developer Bethesda itself. Fans petitioned to have Curry immortalised in The Elder Scrolls VI and Bethesda eventually responded to announce she would get her own NPC character in the highly anticipated game.

The Elder Scrolls VI is no-doubt years from release, but in the meantime Skyrim Grandma has Oblivion Remastered to work through.

Image credit: Shirley Curry / YouTube.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

12 years after teasing buses were coming to Euro Truck Simulator 2, they finally arrive

You know how it is: you rush to the bus stop because you think you’re going to miss it, then it arrives 12 years late. Typical. The makers of Euro Truck Simulator 2 have shown off a short trailer with a big shiny European coach in it. It confirms that the sim will add driveable buses in some form soon, fulfilling a long-forgotten tease that was first made by the developers back in the cloudy days of 2013.

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Outriders Developer People Can Fly Blames ‘Lack of Communication’ With Publisher Square Enix for Game Cancellation

People Can Fly, the Polish studio best-known for Outriders and Gears of War Judgment, has confirmed even more jobs are at risk as it cancels two projects: Project Gemini and Project Bifrost.

“Today we made a very difficult decision to suspend the development of project Gemini and project Bifrost — the relevant current reports have been released to the market,” CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski wrote in a statement.

“The suspension of the Gemini project is a consequence of the fact that the Publisher has not presented us with a draft of the subsequent content rider to the Publishing Agreement covering the terms and conditions of further milestone on project Gemini and the lack of communication from the Publisher as to its willingness to continue or terminate the Gemini project.

“Project Bifrost was suspended due to the above and the analysis of the Group’s cash flow, which showed a lack of prospects for securing organisational resources and funds necessary to continue the production and release of this project.”

The CEO concluded: “As a result, we have to significantly regroup as a studio and scale down our teams, which hurts the most. We wish to express our deepest regret and sadness over how these events have unfolded and our sincere gratitude for everyone’s contribution up to this point.”

While the statement from Wojciechowski does not specific what publishing companies led to the decision to halt development, the Outriders developer’s own website confirms Gemini was partnered with Square Enix, and Bifrost was a self-published project. Square Enix is yet to comment.

The company similarly “scaled down” development on the latter when it laid off 120 workers at the end of last year. It is also working with Krafton and Sony on Project Echo and Delta, respectively, and Microsoft on Gears of War: E-Day.

People Can Fly’s most recent release is Bullestorm VR, an updated version of the classic shooter for Meta Quest and PSVR 2.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Dead As Disco is a stylish Batman Arkham beat ’em to the beat ’em up

We might rightly judge Batman Arkham-style combat by how cool the counters make you feel, what with the core of it melting into second-nature rhythmic meditation that renders you basically unkillable after a few minutes of practice. You will win the fight. This is guaranteed. The combat is designed to make you win. Usually the second tutorial prompt is “here’s the button that makes you win. Don’t worry if you don’t know when to press it. We’ll tell you”.

Likewise, you will win the fights in Dead As Disco‘s Steam demo. Maybe the action after the demo gets harder. I dare not predict the future. But this is not the important part. The important part is that you will feel very cool as you easily win. You can hold down a button to beat your enemies with a glowstick that hits about three times to every beat in the music. It feels like doing violence with a turbo maraca made of steel and also filled with steel balls. You can also import your own music, so maybe this doesn’t exactly line up with, say, Meshuggah’s Bleed. But it certainly lines up with Michael Sembello’s She’s A Maniac. Here’s a trailer.

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Review: Rune Factory: Guardians Of Azuma (Switch) – A Bold Reinvention That Pays Off

It’d be rune not to.

Rune Factory’s first entry arrived to a welcoming fanbase almost 20 years ago, and players have signed on for the adventures of a string of amnesiac protagonists, equal parts fighter and farmer, ever since. Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma delivers on the promise of the series with another hero mysteriously connected to the land who, despite not having any memory of their life prior, can forge their destiny anew in a charming town filled with a cast of vibrant characters. After the lacklustre reception to Rune Factory 5, developer Marvelous Inc. offers up a totally fresh take on the Rune Factory formula in here that could push the series to even greater heights going forward.

Guardians of Azuma takes place in a brand new location for the Rune Factory series: an Eastern country that draws a lot of aesthetic inspiration from traditional Japanese culture. After choosing between two characters to play as (we picked Kaguya), we enter what is admittedly a pretty long opening sequence of cinematics and tutorials.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Feature: Nintendo Life eShop Selects (May 2025)

Our favourite Switch 1 eShop games released in May.

The summer is here, the Switch 2 is almost here, and that means it’s eShop Selects time for May.

This is our very last Switch 1 edition of our monthly feature — but don’t worry, things aren’t changing with the release of a new console. You’ll still be getting your monthly dose of eShop hidden gems that we’ve reviewed, but Switch 2 eShop exclusives will be joining the party too.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

What’s on your bookshelf?: Fallen London, Pathologic 2 and Skin Deep’s Bruno Dias

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! Did you know that adopting language altered the position of the human larynx, making us more susceptible to choking on food? I learned this because I’ve finished Blood Meridian, and was reading McCarthy’s musings on the evolution of language as a chaser. Proof, then, that the only truly fitting way to leave this world is to die choking on a book. Perhaps this week’s guest can recommend a good one?

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