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If you care about my opinion, I generally still think sticking with a micro SD is the safer and simpler option for Steam Deck storage, but if you’re set on upgrading the internal SSD of your handheld, the Corsair MP600 CORE Mini 2TB SSD is your best bet, now down to $129.99 on Amazon.
Fire up the Steam page for Stellaris, one of my favourite space sims, and you will see 28 pieces of DLC, ranging from free character portraits to £35 expansion passes that span a bunch of species and story packs. Stablemate Europa Universalis 4 has 37 DLC packs under its banner, while Cities Skylines is streets ahead with a whopping 62. Paradox Interactive have long built their core game business around putative forever-projects that trail an enormous mantle of paid expansions. It’s seemingly this, as much as their institutional expertise with 4X, that justifies their commitment to grand strategy games, whose worlds and systems can be fleshed out for literal decades.
Maximizing storage for your Steam Deck or ROG Ally is, frankly, essential. While the built-in SSD handles most games well, few will truly push it to its limits, meaning a good micro SD card is often your best bet. Enter one of the year’s standout deals for Steam Deck owners.
Indonesian indie developers stellarNULL have announced action adventure game Mentari, a coming of age story about a magical girl who heals the world and fights baddies with the power of dance. As they attack you, you’ll hit them with sick twirls and the ‘ol two step, cleansing them of a sickness called the “Stillness”. Bonus fun fact: Mentari means “Sunshine” in Indonesian, while Menari means “dancing”.
A spiritual successor to Studio ZA/UM’s RPG Disco Elysium is currently in development at the newly-formed Longdue. It’s set in a world “conceived by the leads” of the canceled sequel.
A representative of Longdue told us that “the studio isn’t ready to talk about specific names at the moment beyond the people mentioned in the press release, but they are looking forward to sharing more about the game and the studio in the future”. They did, however, confirm that Disco Elysium’s lead writer and designer Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov are not involved.
That great disturbance in the Force you just felt wasn’t a million voices crying out in terror. It was, in fact, me crying out in terror a million times. You see, Aspyr have just announced that they’re porting Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles to PC and Steam. I have a complicated relationship with Jedi Power Battles, in the sense that I think I still have scars on my thumbs from when I played it all night on a busted PS1 controller. I have bled for this game. I’d close my eyes after each six-hours session and see fields of lightsabers flickering and dancing like luminous leeches, chasing me through the Dagobahnian jungles of my dreams.
I will not lie to you, gentle reader. When I first laid eyes on Secret Door’s Sunderfolk, while lurking to the rear of a gaggle of journomancers at a preview event last week, I let out an ostentatious sigh. Fortunately, I still mask up to preview events, and am thus free to adopt all kinds of snotty facial expressions without being set upon by burly PRs and shoved into the minifridge for later disposal. To sum it up, Sunderfolk is a hex and turn-based 2-4 player digital boardgame with fantasy animal characters and deckbuilding elements, reminiscent of Gloomhaven. Conceived during the pandemic lockdowns as a way to “bring back game night”, but without the traditional 30-minute unboxing ritual, it’s played on the big screen but controlled using a dedicated smartphone app, with players stroking and swiping to move characters and play cards.
Intel have announced their latest batch of desktop CPUs, the Core Ultra 200S series, and it’s got the component giants singing quite a different tune. Instead of trying to stuff in ever more threads, and ever more PC-incinerating clock speeds, the Core Ultra 200S family – spearheaded by the Core Ultra 9 285K when it launches later this year – will dial back certain specs compared the 14th Gen range. Instead, the focus will be on power efficiency and lowering temperatures.
A paper aeroplane falls at my feet, with a note written inside: “Even through everything that has happened… I never stopped loving you.” Kind Words 2 is full of touching and drifting remarks like this, written by other players and tossed into the winds for you to find. If you’re allergic to vulnerability, or find cuteness or the “wholesome” games trend hard to digest, you’ve probably already turned your face away. But if your heart is open, even a smidge, if you carry a deep craving to peer through the cracks in the internet to discover a small realm of common humanity, then Kind Words 2 can show you a glimpse of that warm and welcoming world.
Paradox Interactive delayed jail management simulator Prison Architect 2 indefinitely this August, commenting at the time that the game had notable performance issues, and that its system-led design was proving tricky to tinker with. This came a couple of months after the Crusader Kings publisher washed their hands of the sequel’s original developers, Double Eleven.
Speaking to me at Paradox’s Media Day last week, deputy chief executive officer Mattias Lilja offered a shade more insight on the decision, suggesting that hard-up players have “higher expectations” at present and are less trusting that developers will fix problems. Chief creative officer Henrik Fåhraeus also offered thoughts on what Paradox have learned from the disastrous launch of Cities: Skylines 2 in late 2023. Specifically, he said they need to give actual players access to the game early on, not just testers.
