Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The RPS inbox is a wondrous treasure-trove of distraction doubloons, some delightful, some shite-ful, and not even Outlook’s lichen-like interface can dull the luster of its offerings. In amongst the press releases, indie nuggets, and the occasional pitch for sponsored AI content (no, never), something truly exquisite peeks through the chest lid. This week, it was a completely context-free message containing several photos of what appear to be artificial houseplants from a man named ‘Harold’. We take criticism seriously here, so I can only assume the sender intended the contents of these imposter pots to be judged as such. Well, I’m nothing if not obliging. Apologies for the quality of the images. I screen-grabbed then resized them up because I was too scared to download them in case they contained explosives or something.

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Back in February, Graham wrote about potential redundancies at Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM following the cancellation of a standalone expansion to that game, codenamed X7. Now, PC Gamer’s Ted Litchfield has spoken to 12 current and former employees about the circumstances surrounding the cancellation, notably the details of the layoffs, the expansion, and the “humiliation campaign” suffered by writer Argo Tuulik as apparent retaliation for his participation in last year’s extensive People Make Games documentary. You can, and should, read PC Gamer’s report here.

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UK national treasures Inkle – they who looped the globe in 80 days, vaulted the heavens and sang of the highlands – are making a brand new investigation-ma-jig called Miss Mulligatawney’s School For Promising Girls, though the presskit notes that this might not be the final title. It’s set in a 1920s boarding school, where you can expect “tuition in Latin, Geometry and a wide range of team sports, all within the beautiful setting of our isolated country estate”. Also some murders, possibly.

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Everywhere is a creative suite that aims to let players build their own 3D games – such as shooters, racing games, and platformers – without code. Instead, players can use a developer- and user-created asset library to build and “remix” game worlds, then publish them for other folks to play.

Those creative tools will be available to some people next week, when the closed Builders Beta launches on June 18th.

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When I play Minecraft, I mostly just want to build things, or maybe go exploring across its landscapes, which still have the power to surprise and delight me. My son, meanwhile, mostly wants to murder me – and in the game.

The Tricky Trials update, out now, might help redirect his bloodlust. It adds trial chambers full of traps and treasure, including waves of hostile mobs to battle against.

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Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown‘s first story DLC got a two-second trailer during Ubisoft Forward on Monday, confirming its name and its coming release this September. Here’s a more specific release date that’ll matter more to some of you: The Lost Crown itself will come to Steam on August 8th.

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The latest Helldivers 2 patch is memorably titled 01.000.400, but for my money, it’s hovering on the brink of being one of your gold-varnished “X.0” updates of note. It adds a fair few mechanics and makes various substantial adjustments to Arrowhead and Sony’s liberty-humping, cheerily xenocidal squad shooter.

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In the past I’ve described Phantom Blade Zero, the foetid and frantic new action-RPG from Chinese studio S-Game, as a Soulslike, and more specifically a Sekirolike. I must now hang my head and await the executioner’s ludicrously oversized hammer, for while Phantom Blade Zero’s ambience and layouts owe something to From’s work, the moment-to-moment has just as much in common with older hack-and-slash games such as Ninja Gaiden. I played a bit of it at Summer Game Fest this week, and while I’m not rushing out to preorder (I never am, in fairness), I think it could be a good ‘un.

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Ten years ago, we were drowning in early access survival games about chopping trees and crafting camp fires. Rust pit monstrous players against one another, DayZ had us dashing around for beans and bleach, while The Forest creeped us the hell out in a dark jungle. There was even a week-long celebration here at RPS called survival week to get the genre out of our systems. A lot of those games have since graduated to a full 1.0 release, but one survivalist shambled on. 7 Days To Die is a solid sandbox craft ’em up with zombie hordes, and it never left the comfort of its early access log cabin surrounded by spikes and land mines. But a (tentative) release date is finally on the horizon, according to the developers. And it’s quite soon.

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This piece is written in memory of the Alpha Doshaguma, a huge furry quadruped with the belly, gait and mournful disposition of an orphaned St Bernard, which – no, who was sleeping blamelessly in a canyon when Capcom’s demo presenter strolled up and bopped it with a bayonet howitzer. The demo in question was for Monster Hunter Wilds, which they probably should rename Monster Hadron Collider in that a major selling point appears to be making the megafauna converge and murder each other. It’s possible to do this in previous games, especially 2018’s Monster Hunter: World, but not like this. Not like this. Alas for the Alpha Doshaguma. Getting rocket-speared in the bum was only the start of its worst day ever.

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