Deckbuilding RPG Cross Blitz enters early access this year

On any given day, you can find me either thinking about, praying for, or playing cute pixelated games with some old-school charm. Luckily, we have a pretty promising one of those on the horizon with Cross Blitz, a deckbuilding RPG that follows some furry animal pirates across the high seas, digitally represented on a grid-based map this time around. Cross Blitz was announced two years ago, but the indie team at Tako Boy have secured a publisher and are now ready to launch into early access later this year.

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Fallout: New Vegas is currently free to keep on the Epic Games Store

Every week, the Epic Games Store gives away one free game for everyone. This week that freebie is Fallout: New Vegas – Ultimate Edition, available to keep forever from now until June 1st. So, if you somehow missed Obsidian’s post-apocalyptic postal service sim, now’s the time to get stuck in the wasteland. Just hop over to the Epic Games Store to add the game to your account. The giveaway ends at 4pm BST on June 1st, at which point New Vegas will be replaced with another mysterious free game.

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Homeworld 3 has been delayed to February 2024

RTS threequel Homeworld 3 has been delayed to February 2024, flying away from its previous “first half of 2023” release window. The developers say they need more time to live up to the series’ standards, presumably with more epic spacefleet shootouts. For those missing the series’ galactic megastructures, the devs have promised to share their biggest “progress update” yet later this summer. Possibly at one of this year’s NotE3 showcases.

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Alone In The Dark comes out this October, stars Jodie Comer and David Harbour

Survival horror reboot Alone In The Dark is coming out on October 25th, publisher THQ announced last night. This new game reimagines the haunted Derceto Manor from the 1992 original, this time with a fancier coat of paint, a third-person camera view, and some famous faces. And if you’d like an early teaser of what’s in store, there’s a free prologue chapter available now, letting you explore a slice of the Southern Gothic mansion.

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Intel’s Arc A750 8GB GPU gets UK price cut to £230.98 – yet outperforms the £300 RTX 3060

Both Nvidia and AMD’s latest graphics card releases, the RTX 7600 and RTX 4060 Ti, have crashed and burned – so who’s going to actually make a well-priced GPU? If you had Intel on your bingo cards, congrulations – their Arc A750 8GB graphics card is down to £230.98 on Amazon UK, marking a £20 price drop that brings this option way below the £300 RTX 3060 that it comprehensively beats.

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Please stop it with all the bland, new multiplayer shooters that will die in six months

2023 has seen the closure of more big multiplayer games than, well, any time I can recall in recent memory. One after the other, developers’ dreams of making the next big Destiny-like have gradually collapsed in on themselves. Like a deflated concertina, their last honks of life have been crushed down to desperate, fizzling squeals as servers lie empty and the cost of maintaining them spirals out of control. Some are still hanging in there, sure, but the genre as a whole feels like it’s at a tipping point – and I couldn’t help but sigh as five more multiplayer shooters joined the fray last night as part of Sony’s PlayStation Showcase.

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Warhammer 40,000: Darktide next patch adds new missions (and possibly crossplay?)

A hefty new Warhammer 40,000: Darktide content update arrives in the next week, adding two new missions as well as possibly preparing to let players on Steam and the Windows Store (that’s you, Game Pass gang) play together. It won’t fix the fundamental flaws of the grimdark Left 4 Dead ’em up but these are welcome changes. Darktide is also adding new cosmetics to earn by playing (yeah!) and resuming the release of new cosmetics sold for real money (yeahhh).

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Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2’s latest trailer gives us a first look at its endless Tyranid hordes

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 offered another gameplay trailer today as part of the Warhammer Skulls Showcase, and this one finally shows off the waves of Tyranids you’ll need to stomp through in this surprise sequel. There’s a solid view of both the shooty parts and the stabby parts of combat, as our superhuman hero rips through enemies with the mechanical teeth of his chainsword. Wholesome fun below.

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Amazon Prime June freebies include Neverwinter Nights, SteamWorld Dig 2 and more

Amazon Prime subscribers can claim 13 free games during the month of June. Well, at no extra cost to their Prime subscription, anyway. That’s on top of the recently announced extras that are available for the next few weeks, including Turnip Boy and Calico. But next month’s lineup of freebies – which includes the ever-lovely SteamWorld Dig 2, Neverwinter Nights and Autonauts – starts on June 1st, with more free games being made available every single week after that, so be sure to check back every Thursday.

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The Electronic Wireless Show podcast S2 Episode 17: a brief history of everything that ever ran Doom

This week, inspired by Doom running on teletext, the Electronic Wireless Show podcast investigates: what other devices, mechanisms, or live animals can join the immortal shooter’s vast empire of unlikely ports? Despite not even being on the show this week, Alice Bee tasks us with finding the best, worst, or weirdest cases of Can It Run Doom from across the internet. And, sometimes, inside Nate’s mind.

We also discuss what we’ve been playing this week, with a double bill of disappointment in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum and Darkest Dungeon 2, before Nate transforms the Tower of Jocularity into a marketplace of Dark Bargains. Capitalised for terrible, terrible emphasis.

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