I’m happy to report that Menace feels just as deadly and uncaring as Battle Brothers

Unlike Battle Brothers, there’s no hoofing it across an overworld map in the hoo-rah space marine tactics of Menace. Instead, you’ll build your squad and deploy them across strings of missions on what I assume at this point are multiple different planets. I’d love to be able to tell you more about the context surrounding the battles, since that context was what, for me at least, made Battle Brothers interesting. Edwin’s got you somewhat covered there, anyway. For now, though, I can tell you that Menace feels intricate in its detail and occasionally cinematic in its skirmishes, with a focus on terrain, positioning, and line of sight that evokes a particularly chaotic and deadly tabletop miniatures game.

Read more

The Palworld devs are making their very own Pal-filled Stardew Valley

Palworld developers Pocketpair have revealed Palfarm, a new farming spin-off whose cheeky compound title implies the possibility of countless other Palspin-offs, from Paltrain Simulator to Palnetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant.

It appears to be a Palworld version of Stardew Valley, with players alternating between tending crops, mining the caves, battling wildlife, and bonding with the local NPCs. As in vanilla Palworld, you can capture Pals with different abilities and set them to work on tasks like sowing and watering. Here’s a trailer.

Read more

“Here comes the feeling” promises Kojima in latest maddening tease for Metal Gear-like Physint

Dear Hideo Kojima, you’d better give us a proper update on your new Metal Gear-style action-espionage game-movie wotsit Physint soon, because for every hour that passes, I think of another unbearable title pun.

I’m not very Physinterested in Physint right now, a game defined by what it Physisn’t. Perhaps I’d be more Physinto it if Kojima Productions would share a proper outline and explore the Physintricacies. But this is Hideo Kojima, a man of *grunts, strains* Sphysint-like enigma. Still, at least we now know that Don Lee from Train To Busan is in the stealthy film-o-game, together with Charlee Fraser from Furiosa and Minami Hamabe from Godzilla Minus One.

Read more

Dying Light: The Beast developers are working on fixes for broken day-night cycles and indoor rain

Techland’s Dying Light: The Beast launched last week and is, sources say, “a good Dying Light game, and a fine open-world zombie game in general, full of crunchy combat and simple but satisfying number-go-up loops”. Being a new videogame, it also has some bugs. The most dramatic of these appear to be problems with its day/night cycle and weather system.

Read more

Here are 239 imaginative, daft or broken falling block games featuring laser drones, LocoRocos and playing cards

It is written that when the Sumerian king Gilgamesh first beheld the gleaming ramparts of Uruk‐Haven, many centuries ago, he said unto his architects: “be sure to save up gaps for those long straight ones, and try your best to start a multiplier”. But then Gilgamesh realised that, by means of temporal fluctuations too nonsensical to explain, he was actually looking at the submissions page for Falling Block Jam 2025, the latest Itch.io “make a thing with a theme” festival, which ran from last week till today.

Read more

Silksong’s latest public update fixes its worst boss, but not as much as you’re likely hoping

Hollow Knight: Silksong‘s hitherto beta-only update 1.0.28650 is now a fully public release that any dang fool can download without switching to a Steam playtest branch. I’m still noodling my way through the lower levels of Team Cherry’s new metroidvania, blissfully unbothered by any pressure to review it or write Silksong walkthroughs. As such, I asked our reviewer James to have a look at the patch notes and pluck out any important changes, based on his many, many hours in Pharloom.

A shadow glided over James’s face, then returned and took up residence in one earhole. Wordlessly he outstretched a gnarled finger towards item 3 on the list: “Fixed Savage Beastfly in Far Fields sometimes remaining below the lava.”

Read more

This week in PC games: Tokyo Game Show, Silent Hill, babel city-building and an RPG about a fugitive king

Hello reader who is also a player! Once again I have failed in my fervent efforts to meddle with the Earth’s rotation so as to suspend time exactly at 11.30am, Saturday morning. I fear that another week is upon us. Fortunately, it contains some new PC games, spanning full releases and early access launches. Some of those new PC games may even be worth a modest portion of your lifespan and personal capital. Here’s a list of the ones I find most appealing or notable.

Read more

Silent Hill f review

Is there anything left that Silent Hill can offer us? Last year, I felt the answer to that question was a resounding no. The series’ comeback game The Short Message, a short teaser of a horror experience, landed far, far away from my tastes, and last year’s Silent Hill 2 was a remake of a game that needed one perhaps less than any other. This year is different though, because it has a true, full-sized, and most importantly new entry to bring this question back to the forefront. And Silent Hill f is a game that has, annoyingly, put me in my place.

Read more

What’s on your bookshelf?: author and narrative designer Heidi McDonald

Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week – the only regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books that has no conception of space, time, responsibility or consistency. Also, I can’t read. Still, I’m feeling confident we can get through this together. In that, I have no other choice. This week, it’s editor and author for books like Digital Love and Well Played, and writer on games like Orion Trail and Bramblewood, Heidi McDonald! Cheers Heidi! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?

Read more

Build island factory towns for fat cats in Whiskerwood, the latest sooty strategy sim from Hooded Horse and the Railgrade devs

Whenever possible, I like to sucker-punch everybody’s weekend plans by blogging the release of a huge 4X strategy game, factory sim or other managerial timesink last thing on Friday. In this case, I’m ambushing you with the avid rodent carpentry of Whiskerwood, the new city builder from Railgrade developers Minakata Dynamics and Manor Lords publishers Hooded Horse. It’s got 40 different commodities, an elaborate weather simulation, and a demo out now on Steam. Haha, yes! You are welcome.

In Whiskerwood, you are a mouse mayor setting up island colonies on behalf of some bastard fat cats. Yes, this one’s a straight-shooting allegory, but going by the release date trailer, any transferable learnings about the plight of the mouse proletariat come a distinct second to the joy of plaiting conveyor belts.

Read more