Please let me bow before The Protectorate’s gold-trimmed porcelain thrones, The Outer Worlds 2

I blast my way through another hulking dragoon, and run off down a corridor, companions breathlessly in tow. Surrounded by doors, I pick one before the next platoon of goons can descend upon us. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Nirvana. A rare breather from The Outer Worlds 2‘s rollercoaster of shooting and talking.

For a moment, I just take it in. Breathing deeply, my nostrils fill with the scent of fresh bleach. My mouth waters at the sight of surfaces you could eat your lunch off of. My eyes widen at the brilliance of the gold trim. Somehow, I can hear the fact there mush be a fresh roll in each perfectly-maintained cubicle.

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Either Battlefield 6’s battle royale mode will release next week or they’re adding granite, or something called granite

You are leaving the mission area, soldier! Actually, the mission area is leaving you. It is sick of your shit. It has decided that your foxhole isn’t part of acceptable reality anymore. Battlefield 6’s long-awaited battle royale mode seems likely to be revealed on 28th October. In less than a week, we could be laying eyes on the Battlefield interpretation of the well-worn Plunkbat and/or Fortnite premise of a vast map fringed by corrosive oblivion that shrinks overtime, forcing scavenging players into a claustrophobic last stand.

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Hello, Pacific Drive DLC, Boltgun 2 trailer, Denshattack release window and Solasta II early access update

Right, so, I’ve thus far failed to grow a second pair of hands, despite Edwin suggesting me and Oisin try. Sorry, mate. As a result, here’s a quick run around the houses of interesting stuff we’ve not covered from yesterday’s Galaxies showcase that I think’s worth nattering about.

Look, you can’t ask a person to choose between writing about a shadow-dropped Pacific Drive expansion and some other things that folks in the RPSverse may also be interested in hearing about. I can’t be expected to make decisions. That’s illegal.

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Have Fallout 4 and New Vegas again, say Bethesda, and also a release date for Fallout 76’s Burning Springs

Yesterday was Fallout Day, the date in the series’ universe when the bombs dropped and permanently turned a lot of people into those skeletons you grind into dust while tramping about in your power armour. Bethesda awakened Todd Howard from cryo-sleep, and announced some stuff in a broadcast. Fallout 4 and New Vegas are being sold to people again. Also, in admittedly more exciting news, Fallout 76‘s Burning Springs update got a proper release date.

The upcoming second series of Prime Video’s Fallout TV Show was also there, with that and the 76 update set to make December very Walton Gogginsy.

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Spec Ops: The Line director’s new insomnia horror game Sleep Awake will release in December

Speaking as a veteran insomniac who routinely has to operate across time zones, let me share a few of my top tips for staying awake when you really want to sleep. Firstly, fill your eyes with as much light as possible – moonlight, fridgelight, phonelight, flamingoilbarrelight – and your lungs with as much bracing external air as they can take. Secondly, enlist a similarly restless friend for some mutual tickling. Thirdly, remember your failures. All of them. Fourthly, consume a carefully calibrated mixture of fresh fruit and coffee, then look up dad jokes on Reddit.

It doesn’t feel like any of these proven strategies will work in Sleep Awake, the new first-person “psychedelic” horror game from former Spec Ops: The Line director and designer Cory Davis and his team at Eyes Out. Nobody wants to tickle you here, going by the trailer. Nobody has any dad jokes to share. They just want to beat you to a bloody sludge with pipes.

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Hades 2 post-launch patch 1 revamps Melinoë’s “true ending”, and is out now in Steam preview form

Hades 2‘s true ending didn’t feel totally slam dunk satisfying to me in its 1.0 release form, and developers Supergiant Games seem to have agreed with those sorts of assessments. Hence, in the roguelike‘s first proper post-launch patch they’ve just put out as a Steam preview, some “true ending enhancements” being rolled out like a boon from a sassy god.

Shameless plug alert, if you want to read my full thoughts on that 1.0 version, you can read this here review. The short version is that it’s good.

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Twin Peaks-inspired spooky private eye puzzler Silver Pines is set to deliver missing musician mystery next year

Watch out. There’s a musician mystery afoot. They’ve gone missing, mysteriously. So says Silver Pines, a Twin Peaks-inspired survival horror puzzler that’s set to arrive next year, according to an announcement trailer that’s just barged into my house in a trench coat, waving a gun about and demanding to know whether I did it.

No, I respond calmly, there are no missing musicians around here. For a moment, I fear he might notice the outline of a guitar’s headstock buried under the carpet. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, he says, as all detective-ish types do. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

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Oneway.exe is the tale of an abandoned game that really, really wants your skin(s)

I have come to the conclusion that it was a mistake to play the demo for cyber horror game Oneway.exe on my lunch break. I’m not going to tell you what I had for lunch – I think if I describe it in full, I will throw up. But I will say that it featured red peppers and purple onions, and I now wish never to see those colours ever again.

Also, it’s possible that I’m still playing the demo for Oneway.exe, because the game takes place inside an off-brand mock-up of a desktop operating system. Yes, we are in Everything Is Going To Be OK territory. Hypnospace Outlaw-ville. Pony Island, er, land. But you never saw quite such… sights in either of those games, as far as I can remember. You never saw such reds and purples. You never saw such delightful little piggies.

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Medieval city builder Farthest Frontier says good knight to early access with its 1.0 release today

A new day, a new city builder! Today the particular entry in this far reaching genre we’re talking about is Farthest Frontier, because it’s leaving early access after more than three years in development. If you’ve never heard of it before, the simple answer is that Farthest Frontier is a medieval city builder. The longer answer includes all the things it does.

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Microsoft pushing for profits “well above the industry average” is reportedly behind Xbox’s layoff and cancellation misery

The bit of reporting I’m about to relay to you probably isn’t surprising, but it’s worth making sure you’ve got a pillow on standby to scream into once you’ve digested it. Microsoft, they of more money than a company could ever need or know what to do with, have reportedly spent the last two years pushing Xbox to deliver profit margins which are well above the industry average. Cue all of the layoffs, cancellations, and shutterings.

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