Auto Added by WPeMatico
Final Fantasy 14’s fifth expansion has a name, a (rough) release date and a first look at what seems to be a notable shift in tone from the apocalyptic climax of Endwalker. Dawntrail will be a summer-themed continuation of FFXIV’s story into a “new story”, bringing new jobs, various content additions and a major visual revamp for the MMO.
Sonic Mania 2 isn’t in development and never was, according to the devs behind the celebrated 2D revival of the blue hedgehog. Contrary to rumours, that’s not because of a falling out between publisher Sega and Sonic Mania’s devs, but because both sides of the creative team decided they wanted to make something new.
Men of War 2 devs Best Way have announced they will run a third and final beta weekend for their upcoming World War II RTS next month, giving us a look at its Classic and Realism modes before it fully hits PC screens in September.
The WD Black SN850x is our top SSD pick for PC gaming, offering some of the fastest load times we’ve ever recorded – so I thought I’d let you know that the 1TB size of the drive has dropped to £47.99 on Ebay when you use code APPLY20 at the checkout. That’s a tiny fraction of the drive’s original RRP and the lowest price we’ve ever recorded for this size. All told, it’s a hugely impressive deal.
I have a complicated relationship with retro-style games in general, and no particular fondness for the Everything Was Nintendo school. Or platformers, or double jumping, or dashing, or neon, or being alive in general. Dislike is the wrong word, but “weary neutrality” about covers my feelings when another retro platformer comes down the game tubes.
Gravity Circuit, however, is good enough that I can’t not mention it here. It’s loud and bright without being obnoxious or overwhelming, fast and precise without being overly demanding, and generally just a damn good effort at creating a modern action platformer whose main influence is obvious, but isn’t just going through the motions for the sake of nostalgia. I’m saying it’s good, yeah? Maybe not quite for me, but good anyway.
I bloody love Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. It’s a meaty and satisfying action-platformer with possibly the best-executed comedy and character work of the entire series; a series that’s essentially grown up alongside me, in tone as much as technical sophistication. I wish I had the time to review it properly but, with a weekend and a Baldur’s Gate 3-shaped boulder bearing down, I’m staying in my hardware lane to focus on the performance of and best settings to use in Rift Apart’s new PC version.
In a move that, if it happens a third time, will become a trend known as “doing a Dwarf Fortress“, Kitfox Games are taking on publishing duty for Caves Of Qud, a proc-gen roguelike retrofuturist epic that generates funny patch notes and terrifies me, personally. Development started in 2007, before the game hit early access on Steam in 2015. And now, 1.0 is on the horizon.
Japan’s biggest yearly indie games event returned to a blisteringly hot Kyoto last weekend, just in time for the world-famous Gion Matsuri taking place in the city that same weekend. Bitsummit Let’s Go was the name given to the 11th incarnation of the event, expanding to three days for the very first time – also featuring over 100 games, the largest showcase yet. With so many games on show it’s hard to narrow them all down. Keeping with the event’s spirit of showcasing independent talent and undiscovered gems, I’ve chosen to pick out some of the smaller games peppering the show floor and highlight just a few favourites.
It’s always a sad day when someone leaves the Treehouse, and today we bid adieu to Rachel Watts, as she leaves being our reviews editor for pastures new. Rachel definitely left an impression here, and I know she’ll do the same wherever she goes. For now, join us in saying goodbye with some nice comments, and a look at some of Rachel’s coolest work for us here.
Welcome to Part Two of The RPS 100 for 2023, our annual countdown of our favourite PC games from across the ages. Earlier this week, we ranked our favourite games from 100-51, which can be found over in Part One of this year’s list. But now it’s time for the big 50, going all the way to our collective number one. And I’ll tell you now, it’s not the same as last year.
