“Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed again, this time until the first half of 2025,” Graham wrote in August last year. Today I write: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed again, this time until the second half of 2025.
Going by Bloodlines 2’s career to date, I strongly suspect that in the second half of 2025, I or some other lost soul will be writing: “Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed again, this time until the first half of 2026.” Let this news piece stand as a Meeting of the Ways, the profane axle running through past, present and future as the Nine-Eyed Wheel of History bears us down into the mulch.
Alright, Steam Deck owners. Time to treat your favorite handheld like the MVP it is. The Amazon Spring Sale is live from March 25 to March 31, and some of the best gear I’ve tested is getting hit with serious discounts.
I’ve dug through the clutter and picked out the actually good accessories that are worth your time and cash. These are the docks, cases, power banks, and SD cards I’d recommend to my friends.
If your Deck still lives naked in your backpack or you’re swapping out SD cards like you’re playing cartridge roulette, this roundup’s for you.
A good dock turns your Deck into a command center. A bad one turns it into an overheating USB spaghetti pile. I’ve tried all of these, and these four? Certified solid. My favorite overall is the UGREEN 9-in-1—it’s like a Swiss Army knife that also makes your desk look cooler. The JSAUX HB0609 is the only one here that supports 4K at 120Hz, which makes it perfect if you want smooth frame rates on a big screen. And for under $30, Anker’s 6-in-1 is such a good deal I had to double-check the price wasn’t a typo.
Best Steam Deck case and protections deals in Amazon Spring Sale
Slim, military-grade, shock-proof, charging port access
Steam Deck OLED/LCD
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen someone throw their Steam Deck into a bag unprotected like it’s a stress ball. Look, I love chaos too—but not when it leads to cracked screens. I bounce between the JSAUX Sling Bag for travel and the tomtoc Armor Case for daily use. That tomtoc case? Shockproof, slim, and built like it’s ready for war. Also, props to JSAUX for including screen protectors that even I couldn’t mess up during install.
These are the best power banks I’ve tested—period. The Anker Prime is like carrying an electrical outlet in your backpack. It’s pricey, but it’ll fast charge your Deck, your phone, and your laptop without breaking a sweat. The UGREEN Nexode is the sweet spot for performance and price, and if you want something that looks cool too, the Shargeek 170 has a transparent design that screams “I mod Game Boys for fun.” I don’t, but I like the energy.
I don’t care how big your Steam library is. At some point you’ll need a bigger microSD card. The Lexar PLAY 1TB is the one I keep in my Deck. It’s fast, reliable, and actually built for handheld gaming. The Samsung PRO Plus series is also rock solid, especially the 512GB if you want speed without going full terabyte. These are the cards I’d buy again if I ever somehow filled mine. Which I will. Probably next week.
Game development can be stressful, I’m sure you’ve heard. The director of fighting game series Tekken yesterday shared an anecdote about how wild that stress can get. Speaking about the release of Tekken 4 in 2001, director Katsuhiro Harada remembered it didn’t perform as well as previous games. And the game’s relatively weak reception (alongside a lack of support at Bandai Namco) sent his body into a spiral of ill-health from anxiety.
“I was under so much stress at the time that I developed a mysterious condition where all the hair on the right side of my body fell out – just the right side,” said the director in a post on Xitter. “Even the hair on my arms, eyebrows, and eyelashes disappeared.”
Amazon’s Spring Sale is back, and upon first inspection, it’s not looking like a vintage year. There are some discounts on quality PC gear, but a deals collapse has left them buried under forty thousand tonnes of overcomplicated toothbrushes and collagen peptide powders. So, so many collage peptide powders. I didn’t know there was this much collagen on Earth.
It’s still my job – it is still my job, right? Okay just checking – to dig through the Paltrow-adjacent junk and yank out the good stuff, so let’s start small with a few quid/bucks off one of my favourite Steam Deck docks. The JSAUX 6-in-1 Multifunctional Docking Station may have a clumsy name but it’s a keen bit of accessory design, with the port-adorned central block (which acts as a stand in docked mode) able to detach and pull double duties as a portable USB-C hub. It’s perfect for Steam Deck/Asus ROG Ally/Lenovo Legion Go/Zotac Zone etc. owners who want to keep employing that extra connectivity when taking their handheld away from home, and the Spring Sale has chipped the already-aggressive price down to £38 / $31.
Paradox have announced that 4X space strategy game Stellaris‘s next major overhaul will launch on 5th May, alongside the game’s BioGenesis DLC pack. The latter adds living spaceships together with new civics, traits and megastructures, but I’m more interested in the 4.0 update, which they’re branding the “phoenix update” in that it aims to overhaul performance problems caused by the 4X game’s update-bloated systems, while making “guidance and pacing” changes with new players in mind.
It doesn’t sound nearly as exciting on the surface as living spaceships, I’ll grant you, but this is a 4X game, don’t forget – the mythological firebird is in the detail.
♫ Stabbing a man. Stabbing a man. Sometimes in Greece. Sometimes in Japan. Stabbing a man. Sometimes in a meadow. Here is our verdict on Assassin’s Creed Shadows ♫
Nic: To kick off this verdict, I have no choice but to ask my most insightful question: how Assassin-y is this Assassin’s Creed Game?
Jeremy: This is the first AssCreed game I’ve engaged with since Assassin’s Creed II, which I watched my roommate play through in university. So my opinion is not especially scientific, but from what I’ve seen it is very Assassin-y. The story – which is serviceable if not anything original – revolves around tackling a group of masked bad guys known as the Onryo (that’s Japanese for ghost), who are introduced with cool chanbara-style music. You’ve got to kill all of them, and sometimes you have to kill other folks who are connected with them, and in general there is a whole lot of assassinating going on, either with Naoe (who slices and dices with the standard hidden blade) or Yasuke (who has a ‘brutal’ assassination where he shoves his katana into someone’s face).
Open world sci-fi RPG Beta Decay is being delightfully greedy. The game’s retro PS1-inspired art style hides some furious ambitions. It will be a “dystopian RPG where you can build spaceships, join factions, and fight for territory in a newly discovered star system,” according to the Steam blurb. The game’s previous trailer showed some swish (if somewhat prototypey) cover shooter combat. But the game now plans to launch into early access this year, developers Rotoscope Studios have announced. And this time they’ve brought the big guns, literally. Mech some time for the trailer below.
When Lords of the Fallen came out in 2014, it was interesting to see another developer daring to mimic From Software’s Souls formula. But now that it’s a whole genre, seeing another big-budget soulslike just doesn’t feel special anymore – even Star Wars has had a crack at it. So what’s The First Berserker: Khazan bringing to the table? What fresh twist or novel setting makes this soulslike stand out? To be frank, I can’t see one. If I were to be as reductive as possible, I’d say it simply takes some core ideas from Nioh, and slaps Sekiro‘s parry on top.
Some of you might read that and think this anime-eyed action RPG sounds derivative. Others will probably salivate with glee. Well, both reactions make sense. There’s absolutely nothing original about The First Berserker: Khazan. It might also be the most fun I’ve had playing a soulslike in years.
Earlier this month I had the chance to check out Remedy’s forthcoming Control spin-off game FBC: Firebreak, which casts you as a bunch of weaponised office gremlins fighting the extra-dimensional Hiss and other “paranatural” lifeforms in the corridors of the Oldest House. The game is a co-op first-person shooter, which is a bit of a departure from the likes of Alan Wake 2. How, if at all, has Remedy had to change to make a game like Firebreak? Have they, for example, hired up a bunch of seasoned FPS devs? I put the question to game director Mike Kayatta and Remedy’s comms director Thomas Puha.
Sorry Australians, you can’t confront the horrifying psychological manifestations of your inner turmoil. It would be too much for you, according to the government. The country’s classification board recently refused to grant upcoming horror game Silent Hill f an age rating, essentially preventing it from being sold in the country unless certain elements of the game are toned down or altered by Konami. But it’s possible the developer will do just that, as the classification board has retracted their ruling. At least for the time being.
♫ Stabbing a man. Stabbing a man. Sometimes in Greece. Sometimes in Japan. Stabbing a man. Sometimes in a meadow. Here is our verdict on 
