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.
In an unexpected twist, a large amount of my time is now spent playing Fall Guys, the rubberised, free-to-play competitive bean racing game. I am therefore well equipped to tell you about its Survival Update, released this week, which adds new levels, new powerups and makes it possible to create survival rounds via the in-game level editor.
Space Crew is superficially similar to FTL: you manage a crew in space as you deal with peril, put out fires and fight off aliens. It’s set apart by between-mission management, during which you get the steady dopamine drip of ship, crew and equipment upgrades and customisation.
It’s free to keep from Steam for the next two weeks.
It’s looking increasingly likely that Gearbox Entertainment is going to be sold by Embracer. In a town hall with staff earlier this week, CEO and co-founder Randy Pitchford reportedly told staff that a decision had been made regarding the studio’s future, with more details to be shared in March.
Embracer bought Gearbox for $1.3 billion (around £1.02 billion) in 2021, but it was reported that they were looking to sell last year as part of ongoing layoffs, closures and divestments.
I come to you with an important question today, readers. Has there ever been an actually good sewer level in a video game before? I propose to you that there has not. Sewer levels are the worst. They have always been the worst, and will always be the worst. There is no redeeming feature that can make sewer levels good, fun or enjoyable, and I come to you today saying they must stop. No more sewer levels, developers. Please. I beg you. Especially you, Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster. You’re the chief offender in this whole mess, and both my nostrils and my sanity simply cannot take it anymore.
When Ori And The Blind Forest developers Moon Studios announced that their next game would be a top-down, online action RPG, my initial reaction was, ‘Heck yes, sign me the hell up for this Souls-y, Diablo-y hack and slash.’ Having now played the opening 90 minutes of the game ahead of tonight’s Wicked Inside showcase, that initial excitement has settled into more of a ‘Hoo boy, this thing is hard as nails. Folks who like Elden Ring and Dark Souls are going to go absolutely bananas for it.’ It’s definitely verging on the edge of being just a teensy bit too punishing for my personal taste, but even though my arse got thoroughly whomped time and time again during this initial prologue section, there’s still something about No Rest For The Wicked that’s left me quietly captivated.
It’s a tale as old as time: when a great, popular game rises to the top of the Steam charts, scammers and chancers will do everything in their power to steal some of that glory for themselves. The latest victim is Helldivers 2, with scammers putting up two separate fake pages for it on Steam over the last 24 hours. Each page listed Arrowhead as the developer, and PlayStation as the publisher, along with big discounts of 50-75% off to tempt players into buying the cheap version instead of the real one.
Hope everyone enjoyed the RPS Game Club returning with Cobalt Core, though personally, I’ve always found deckbuilders a bit short on the screaming slaughter of unclean heretics. Put down the cards and pick up a boltgun, then, as this month’s Game Club pledges eternal service (until April) to Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
Your most commonly visible bones are your teeth, so what better way to worship at the fleshy altar of Doom than by polishing those bones with an electric toothbrush whose little LCD screen is running Id Software’s seminal satanic shooter? The latest delightfully weird device rising to the eternal question “Can it run Doom?” is a WiFi-enabled ‘smart toothbrush’, which is juuust powerful enough to run a version of Doom. You can even control it with your mouse. Here, check this out.
There are moments where Sons Of The Forest matches the sublime paranoia of Subnautica. There’s that same lurching, exquisite tension as you delve deeper and deeper into darkness where you are not welcome, supplies dwindling, footfall echoing, monstrosities skittering about in the black. On my most intense plunge into one cave, I groaned aloud as the path I was praying must be the exit twisted back on itself, sending me first down a rope, and then into a long slide down, down into the earth, back into the spindly clutches of pale, bifurcated mutants. When I finally saw the sun again, I could have cried.
It’s still a bit wonky, but the full 1.0 release makes the Forest a fuller, livelier and more inviting (or else alluringly off-putting) prospect for a wander – even, as in my case, a wholly solo one. Consider this your cue to peel open some skin pouches.