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Dune: Awakening, the massively-multiplayer take on Frank Herbert’s sandy sci-fi universe from dong-loving devs Funcom, has shown off some more of its online, open-world Arrakis in a lengthy developer direct. We’ve also learnt more about what we will – and won’t – be able to do during our time exploring the planet.
When we first meet The Thaumaturge‘s hero Wiktor Szulski, we’re told he’s a man cursed by the vice of pride. It’s a trait that sits at the heart of his personality, and in this particular alt-history telling of Polish turmoil in Warsaw at the turn of the twentieth century, such ‘Flaws’ can also attract the attention of otherworldly beings called Salutors – vicious creatures of myth and folklore who follow their quarry around like dark and gloomy shadows, amplifying their worst qualities and, in many cases, driving them to emotional, and often violent, extremes. It’s these outbursts that Wiktor will be investigating over the course of this curious detective RPG from the makers of Seven: The Days Long Gone and the upcoming The Witcher 1 Remake, as fortunately for him, Wiktor comes from a long line of storied Salutor tamers, his thaumaturgic know-how allowing him to see these monsters made flesh, exorcise them from their human host, and use them for his own gains.
He’s a man that’s ultimately made peace with his own arrogance, then, but considering everything he goes through during The Thaumaturge’s 25 hour-odd run-time, I reckon his pride is pretty justified. Not only is he able to brush off multiple stab and gunshot wounds and clubs to the face when he gets in a fight, but he also achieves several feats of thaumaturgy that we’re repeatedly told are thought to be nigh on impossible. Indeed, at the start of this game, his connection with his original Salutor Upyr is hanging by a thread, his worst instincts having got the best of him in a recent attempt to tame and capture a second beast from the ether. By the end, however, I had six Salutors at my beck and call, out of a total of eight. Wiktor is very much a force to be reckoned with, and he makes for a highly compelling lead as you navigate the branching storylines in Warsaw’s political hotbed.
Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter’s #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, despite Twitter throwing a wobbly and doing its best to keep me from taking a good look at the tag, I still found plenty of interesting and attractive indie games to admire. Check ’em out!
The fast-paced flag-capturing FPS series Tribes will return from the dead once again next week with the early access launch of Tribes 3: Rivals. Over the weekend, developers Prophecy Games announced March 12th is the date, with the full launch to follow after up to a year. Prophecy are spun off from Hi-Rez Studios, the folks who who made Tribes: Ascend, which officially shut down a few years back. I hear this next one’s pretty fun.
As any fool knows, the age of girlies bulk-buying silver wire and making their own crystal jewellery at home is over, but EA always arrives precisely when it means to. This weekend saw the release of the Crystal Creations Stuff Pack, a DLC for The Sims 4 that takes the ability to find crystals (already in the game) and straps on your Sims making them into semi-precious, semi-magic jewellery that can be charged up by the moon. What I find more interesting is that this launched with some official IRL Sims plumbob jewellery that you can buy and wear around your own precious, swan-like neck.
I still don’t fully understand the rancor with which the RTX 4070 Ti is often regarded. Where some see an overpriced, memory-deprived albatross of a graphics card, I’ve only ever seen a fast and feature-rich GPU whose 12GB of VRAM is demonstrably fine for 99.95% of games at 4K. A better deal than the RTX 4080 for that resolution, in any case.
Now, though, we can all agree: nobody should buy an RTX 4070 Ti. Not when the RTX 4070 Ti Super is here, doing a better, hopefully less contentious job of smooth 4K without demanding RTX 4080 (or, indeed, RTX 4080 Super) levels of investment.
Last week’s alleged Epic Games hack was a scam, so-called “ransomware” group Mogilevich have confessed, or at least, are reported to have confessed in a self-congratulary new statement. The group have not, it now seems, stolen a bunch of login data, WIP software and payment information from the creators of Fortnite; they were only pretending to have done so with a view to duping other hackers into buying their tools.
Or at least, that’s what they’re said to be saying now. I haven’t tracked down the original source for Mogilevich’s latest statement, and in any case, anything you read from a self-described “professional fraudster” should probably be treated with caution. Still, it lines up with Epic’s own comments last week that there was no real sign that a hack had taken place.
New week, new videogames, new newsblog. It’s another relatively quiet week for big name PC releases – no mega-sequels or adaptations, unless you’re seriously into the Moomins – but if 2024 has taught me anything it’s that a breakout hit can come from anywhere, and I will accordingly be watching this week’s new games with deep suspicion and barely constrained panic.
Here are the ones that seem most promising, at the time of writing: Warsaw-set magician RPG The Thaumaturge (4th March); spacey cube-obsessed factory sim Sixty Four (4th March); all-terrain open-worlder Expeditions: A MudRunner Game (5th March); co-op-skewed laboratory gorefest The Outlast Trials (5th March); circus horror Reveil (6th March); Sonic-maniac platformer Berserk Boy (6th March); Shadow of the Octopus ’em up Chasing The Unseen (7th March); storybook puzzler Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley (7th March); XCOM-meets-Baldur’s-Gatea-like Zoria: Age of Shattering (7th March).
As ever, this list is sponsored by the Maw, that convoluted and churning force of cosmic greed, which we strive ever to keep stuffed full of videogame news, lest it guzzle down what we are pleased to call our reality. It’s an incomplete, working list of recommendations – if we’ve missed something you’re looking forward to, it’s absolutely because we despise it, and are secretly out to punish you for ever liking it. I mean, it’s because I ran out of time. Feel free to suggest games for coverage in the comments along with any breaking news we should pounce on. Have a good week!
Vampire Survivors received yet another update this past week. The Space-54 update adds two new characters, four new weapons, a new relic, and a new bonus stage. It also introduces cross-save support between Steam and Android to the Steam public beta branch.
Starfield‘s next update will arrive in beta on March 6th, bringing another suite of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. Top of the list of tweaks is the ability to change player character and compansion facial expressions during photo mode, like running your family snaps through FaceApp to create the illusion everyone had fun on their holiday to the Bonneville salt flats.
