Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The recent round of layoffs at Respawn parent company EA reportedly lead to around 300 to 400 job losses, plus cancellations of two incubation projects. It’s since come out that one of those projects was likely an extraction FPS set in the Titanfall universe, codenamed ‘R7’. This joins an unannounced single player Titanfall game cancelled in 2023, alongside the perpetually rumoured but yet-to-materialise Titanfall 3. It has, in brief, been a rough forever to be a fan of Respawn’s exciting mix of parkour shooting and mech piloting combat.

But what’s this? Nestled in the replies to this good Bluesky post lies the promise of a mechful consolation prize. “Oopsie I dropped this legally distinct fan project,” writes Diesel Knights developer Xavier B. Johnson, alongside one of those Steam links I know you all enjoy. “Diesel Knights is a 6-v-6, Mech/Movement Shooter set in a pulp-inspired, dieselpunk world”, and you can request access to the upcoming playtest right now.

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Ding ding, it is AI-slop-alypse-O-Clock. Time for another helping of doom-ridden commentary upon the technologies that are busily scraping and remaking all the wit, lore and gibberish accumulated over 30 blessed years of the internet. Here’s a cut from a Mustard Plays interview with Fortnite product management director Dan Walsh, in which he comments upon the issue of Fortnite players using latter-day generative AI tools to conjure up thumbnail images for their profiles.

While Epic aren’t, Walsh says, about to use any genAI when creating their own assets such as character models for Fortnite, they don’t really care if players do, as long as the resulting images don’t break any rules around graphic violence or similar. Beyond that, Walsh argues that generated images are becoming so tricky to spot that the idea of banning their usage in a game like Fortnite is impractical. Hmmm.

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“A beautifully made retro-inspired RPG that will instantly transport you back to the 16-bit golden years, for better or worse,” was how Katherine Castle (RPS in peace) summarised Sea Of Stars, a Chrono Trigger-style pixelart sojourn down memory lane from Sabotage Studios, creators of The Messenger. I imagine it’s better rather than worse for the addition of some sizeable, circus-themed free DLC, Throes Of The Watchmaker.

Out 20th May, the expansion adds a new playable character, Arty, together with an estimated eight hours of new areas, music, dungeons, minigames, enemies, bosses, puzzles, and playable classes for original protagonists Valere and Zale. Run your rose-tinted retinas over this trailer.

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Gearbox and Take-Two recently brought forward the release of giggling gunslinger Borderlands 4 from 23rd September to 12th September. This came a week or two after Bungie and Sony also decided to release their Marathon reboot on 23rd September.

If you thought all that was evidence of publishers playing 4D chess around the currently unannounced release date of GTA 6, with Bungie and Sony making the fair assumption that Take-Two won’t release GTA 6 and Borderlands 4 on the same day… then you were mistaken. You should be ashamed to speculate in this fashion! Pshaw! Harrumph! Damn your eyes, sir, and damn the stalking horse you rode in on.

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Proton, the compatibility software co-developed by Valve and CodeWeavers for helping Windows games run on Linux – and, thus, the foundation for the Steam Deck – is getting its first full version update in nearly a year. Proton 10.0 is now available in beta form, heralding compatibility fixes and improvements in enough games that I gave up bothering to do an accurate count. Loads, basically.

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It’s been so long since the last Starcraft that all I can remember is that Zergs build on creep, the Protoss Void Ray is a glorified Xmas bauble, and Jim Curry went to space. I’m pretty sure at least one of those things is from some other strategy game universe. Maybe Worms. How long must we wait for a Starcraft 3? A long time yet, but possibly not forever, for Blizzard are apparently handing the rights to the cherished RTS series to Nexon, publisher of Dave the Diver and The Finals.

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You know, I don’t think I’ll ever understand why, after finding a huge amount of surprise success, developer 1047 Games decided to stop working on Splitgate all so that they could make a sequel. Perhaps that’s just part of my general confusion towards live service games as a whole, but I do think it’s a bit odd all the same. Still, Splitgate 2 is still on track for a 2025 release it seems, with a date now set for the game’s first open beta.

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Remember when Haunted Chocolatier was announced… sorry, hang on, almost four years ago? Cripes, time really does fly when you’re waiting on the incredibly anticipated follow-up to one of the most popular games of all time doesn’t it! It’s no secret that developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone is happy to take his time with his next game, and good on him for doing so. However, he also can’t help himself but continue to work on Stardew Valley, releasing another pretty big update for the farming game only last year. The good news is that, based on some comments in a recent interview, Haunted Chocolatier is the main focus going forward.

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Update: Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has since reported that between 300 and 400 positions have been “eliminated” across EA, including around 100 at EA. One of the cancelled incubation projects was also apparently an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe.

Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment have announced that two of its incubation projects have been cancelled, leading to what it calls a number of “target team adjustments across Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi.” You may notice that this language is particularly obtuse, in that it doesn’t refer to these adjustments as layoffs. However, according to a report from IGN, layoffs have occurred, though just how many is currently unknown.

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If you’ve been even a little curious about Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, now’s the time to grab it. It’s currently down to $46.19 / £39.59 on PC, so here’s how to get the deal.

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