Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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! Having finally read The Epic Of Gilgamesh recently, I feel I should in be awe at how the proliferation of certain themes and dramatic modes throughout history speaks deeply to the truths of the human experience. However, gaming has taught me to recognise a dirty asset flip when I see one. For shame, much of storytelling.

This week, it’s Saltsea Chronicles, Mutazione, Thronglets, and much more‘s Hannah Nicklin! Cheers Hannah! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?

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I think Q-UP might be gaslighting me. It most certainly is a real video game, I played it myself. And yet it presents an entirely different vision of reality where it is the coin flipping eSport of choice. The worst part is that it nearly convinced me that such a reality is a pretty good one. Perhaps even more than half!

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I am genuinely unsure if MiHoYo are capable of making a game that doesn’t heavily borrow from a different game you probably already love at this point in time. Denying The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s influence on Genshin Impact is like denying the sky is blue! Only recently was Honkai: Nexus Anima revealed, a game that takes Pokemon and shoves it into a blender with Auto Chess. And now there is Petit Planet, a game I can only describe as Animal Crossing but if it was in space, I guess.

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Have you, like me, been unable to get that one TikTok sound out of your head that mixes Anri’s iconic anthem I Can’t Stop The Loneliness with the screams of Hollow Knight’s very own Hornet ever since Silksong came out? It’s a surprisingly good combo, but it also serves as an unintended reminder for something: these particular screams of Hornet’s are nowhere to be found in Silksong. You know, the classics, like “SHAW,” and “Adino!” not to mention the unforgettable “Hegale!” So of course there’s a mod for that.

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It’s been no secret that Remedy’s FBC: Firebreak landed like a piece of haddock at the fishmongers. This shouldn’t necessarily be a complete surprise, after all this is their first attempt at a live service game that’s all them (they also helped to make CrossfireX, and that didn’t go very well either). Still, to Remedy’s credit they’ve also committed to bring changes to the game, and those changes are coming in the form of a big update titled Breakpoint next week.

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Heart Machine have had a busy year. It was only in January that they launched Hyper Light Breaker into early access, a surprise follow-up to their beloved indie action RPG Hyper Light Drifter. That launch didn’t go amazingly due to a myriad of reasons, and even now the game hasn’t completely managed to find its footing yet. And then there’s Possessor(s), their search action (not Metroidvania) game that at long last has a release date!

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The city-building genre is grossly overpopulated. Competing Simvilles predicated on wholly opposed theories about plumbing and traffic wardens stretch as far as the eye can see. As such, the genre must imitate real-life urban centres of the 20th century, and begin expanding vertically. Enter Stario: Haven Tower, the new strategy management sim from Chinese developers Stargate Games, in which you build upward through the realms of Sand, Mist, Rain, Frost, and Clear Skies until finally, your city stands among the Stars.

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I’ve yet to fully consume Consume Me, so please take that headline with a pinch of salt (not too much, because apparently salt can cause short-term weight gain). Still, I thought I’d rush out a quick “on sale now” piece before the weekend because this game is extremely good, and I worry based on the Steam stats that it’s being overlooked.

It’s a fast-talking, mildly anguished pocket RPG about a high schoolgirl, Jenny, who is trying to lose weight while balancing schoolwork, domestic duties, an emerging social life, and her domineering mom. It broadly consists of household tasks and Coming Of Age Milestones couched as a bunch of Wario Ware-style timed minigame puzzles. Among other antics, you’ll fold laundry by clicking on cue, manage a (dis)interest bar during a terrible date, apply your make-up as though doodling yourself in Kid Pix, and surgically arrange food on your plate while passing carbier morsels to your absurdly squishy dog.

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In May this year, despite being deep in development on The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2, CD Projekt revealed that they’d be whipping out one more patch for The Witcher 3 in honour of its tenth birthday. Said update was originally set to drop in 2025, but has now been pushed back into 2026.

It’s a little bit of an extra wait for cross-platform mod support, and given what the studio have been like witch Cyberpunk 2077’s seemingly never-ending string of last updates, I’m not ruling out them having secretly decided to add more new stuff to the RPG masterpiece while they’re at it.

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Yes, this is news. You can bet your bottom it was news to me when I loaded up Nexus Mods for my daily look this morning and found that Hollow Knight: Silksong‘s adult section had tripled in size overnight. It’s the sexy Hornet mods, they’ve broken containment, truth-telling hips and all.

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