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If you’re holding out hope for another Ori and the Blind Forest sequel after Will of the Wisps, bad news: it’s probably going to be a while. Developers Moon Studios have said they’re all-in on Soulslike action–RPG No Rest for the Wicked, suggesting that their “magnum opus” will be their focus for up to a decade.
Distinguishing one metroidvania from another is a dicey challenge, and not just because there’s a 37.8% chance that saying the word “metroidvania” will cause RPS regular Sin Vega to materialise in the mirror and assassinate you with cheesewire. Metroidvanias stand apart for me only in hindsight – it’s all about the precise ratio of abilities to ability gates, of jump-doublers to overhangs, all things that take time to assess properly. Echo Weaver sets itself apart early, however, by declaring that “time is your currency” and that “when faced with eternity, knowledge is the only gear you need”, a phrase that, admittedly, I would probably have extended to “…oh, and a spacetime-folding glaive that works like a throwable fast travel point”.
Last week Dan Henderson, a former product manager at PC water-cooling manufacturer EK Water Blocks, made a public post on LinkedIn, in which he described almost four months of no pay, and being “strong armed and bullied into signing a new contract through fear of losing my job and also financial ruin.” He also accused the company – one of the biggest in the space – of “blatant racism…psychological manipulation, plain bare faced lying, [and] severe unprofessionalism.”
Well, this was unexpected. Malakai Makaisson is the single best campaign experience I’ve had since strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3 launched, and might just be up there with some of the best in the series’ history. That’s over ninety lords he’s given both barrels to getting here and, honestly, I wasn’t sure Creative Assembly still had it in them. Not the talent, mind, just the passion. And nothing says passion like the amber mohawk of a furious dwarf quivering in the wake of a shakily-built zeppelin’s explosive payload. Warhammer!
Twitter user pl_evil has helpfully translated a recent letter to shareholders from Bloober Team, showing that their new game “Project C” will be revealed later this year. This will be the studio’s next original game, after they wrapped up Layers Of Fear last year with, confusingly, Layers Of Fear (the natural progression for a series: Layers Of Fear, Layers Of Fear 2, and then Layers Of Fear again, although it was going to be called Layers Of Fears at one point).
Bloober Team are currently doing a lot of IP work for other people, with the Silent Hill 2 remake due out later this year, and a game codenamed “Project R” in concert with Skybound Entertainment. Skybound are The Walking Dead company, so I wouldn’t give you long odds for a bet on what Project R is about. Neither would I be surprised if Project C is unveiled this summer by a man named Geoff with shiny shiny trainers. I’m interested to see what it is, and honestly I’m hoping it’s a brand new standalone thing, rather than a forced sequel to Observer or 2021’s The Medium (where I got the header).
The Escape From Tarkov developers’ efforts to escape from a DLC paywall quagmire of their own quagmiring continue with an update and apology from Battlestate chief operational officer Nikita Buyanov, who says he “did not foresee” the adverse reaction to selling a new PvE mode as part of a new special edition, after telling purchasers of a previous edition they’d get “all subsequent DLC” for free.
Button mashing is advised against in fighting games if you want to climb the ranks. But those of us who’ve been destroyed by unpredictable little brothers going ham on a joystick know a secret. Sometimes spamming works. One Tekken 8 player is proving this point. They have programmed a bot of Eddy Gordo, the whirling Capoeira fighter, to slap the same button repeatedly, and nothing else, while broadcasting its performance against real players on Twitch. The bot is doing surprisingly well.
New week, new videogames! When will it end, etc. There aren’t many obvious headliners out in the next few days, but there are a lot of tantalisingly bleak games. Let’s see here, we’ve got a survival shooter that’s essentially set in Black Mesa, a sardonical adventure about questing Russian Orthodox nuns, a game about running the company that starts the zombie apocalypse, and a cosy village grower with an atypical emphasis on disease and death. Lovely!
Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome to Booked For The Week – our new Sunday feature where we ask a selection of cool industry folks questions about books! You know books, right? They’re a bit like RPS articles, but heavier and smell a bit nicer. This week, it’s Citizen Sleeper and In Other Waters‘ creator Gareth Damien Martin! Cheers Gareth! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?
What are you currently reading?
We thought Gareth had covered all the books already, but it turns out there’s loads of them, so pop back next week for another cool person telling us about their favourites. Book for now! (still working on that one.)
Steam is lousy with farming sims that will absolutely destroy your productivity by ensnaring you within a compulsive loop of reaping and sowing. Rusty’s Retirement explicitly promises a less engrossing experience: it’s a farming sim that “sits at the bottom of your screen while you do other things.”
