Pondering Geoff’s orbs

Partly in the absence of real surprises, and partly because the auditorium bass notes were making me feel queasy and dissociative, I spent a lot of this year’s Summer Games Fest showcase transfixed by Geoff Keighley’s balls. I am, of course, referring to the show’s animated backdrops, in which glutinous, gleaming orbs floated like nitrogen bubbles in a cosmic brain – sometimes tossed upon a tide of marbled petro-vomit, sometimes drifting over a scree of lava lamp effluence, sometimes hovering against sherbety silver Bermudas of arches and plinths. Immersive!

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The demons are both tragic and hot in Possessor(s), the Hyper Light Drifter studio’s new fantasy platformer

Heart Machine’s side-scrolling metroidvania platformer Possessor(s) is Hollow Knight with a splash of Amanita Design’s Creaks. The bulk of your enemies are household objects – vending machines, plant pots, office printers and other fittings that have become vessels for demons. From this premise springs a note of tragedy powerful enough to conquer my outrage at a game title that has brackets in it. The demons are not, in themselves, violent – it’s inhabiting the inanimate that maddens them. “Possessing something cold and dead is agony… so they lash out,” explains Rhem, a mortally wounded devil you meet in the prologue.

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Fractured Blooms is a cosy game about tending your garden and– oh god that’s a lot of blood

Too many cosy games about mindlessly planting turnips. Not enough cosy games about the house slowly being taken over by viscera. Fractured Blooms is tagged on Steam as “cute” and “anime” and “psychological horror”. It was announced at the Summer Game Fest, where presenter Geoff Keighly described the game as “Doki Doki Literature Club meets Silent Hill”. There’s no release date, but here’s a trailer.

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Come say hello to Mark Warren, RPS’s new senior staff writer

You might have seen a new name around the homepage this past week: Mark Warren. It might also be that you recognise the name if you’re a reader of RPS sibling site VG247, where Mark has already been plying his trade for several years. Well, we’ve adopted Mark here at RPS, as one might adopt a puppy if the puppy really liked mods, RPGs and Helldivers 2. Come say hello in the comments.

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Does the bird warrior of Elden Ring Nightreign have a human face beneath his beak? I’m glad you asked

Does Elden Ring Nightreign‘s bird-bodied Guardian have a human face hidden somewhere on his feathery body? It’s a question people have been thinking about, and by “people” I mean a small subset of Elden Ring obsessives who like to watch the game being picked apart 3D model by 3D model.

Thanks to a prolific Souls modder/dataminer, I can provide you with an answer. In their latest video, Zullie The Witch – who’s previously solved various Souls mysteries and modded an Armored Core into Elden Ring – has unmasked Nightreign‘s crop of nightfarers like they’re Scooby-Doo villians. Most of their faces look how you’d expect, but there are a couple of noteworthy cases that I think it’s worth you knowing about.

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Rally Point: An immense frustration test almost overshadows Burden of Command’s narrative success

Burden Of Command is a lot like me, in that it deserves a lot of love but it’s too frustrating and annoying to get it for long.

The concept is promising: tactical battles with a small batch of soldiers, but as a “leadership RPG” instead of a regular wargame. Occasional glimpses kept my hope alive over its long development, perhaps predisposing me to forgive more than usual when it finally arrived last month. I’m glad I did. But wow, did this game get me yelling for a while.

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Stray Children, the oddball RPG from the devs behind cult classic Moon, is coming to PC in English later this year

Back in 2023, Nintendo held one of those Direct thingies it likes to do, and as it often does the Japanese version of the stream had some games the western one didn’t. In particular, there was one game that drew my attention: Stray Children. It caught my eye in part because it has a really unique pixel art look to it, but also because Yoshiro Kimura was its director, one of the original designers of cult-classic Moon: Remix RPG Adventure. And now, after a bit of a wait, developer Onion Games have confirmed it’s getting its English release later this year, and it’ll even be doing so on PC.

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Downhill is a fourth wall breaking action RPG whose protagonist knows you exist, and might not agree with your actions

Probably one of the most appealing parts of an RPG is bonding with other characters, right? Building up your player character’s relationships with various companions, like in games like the Persona series for example. What I wouldn’t say is particularly common is you, the player, having a direct relationship with the character you’re playing as. This is where Downhill comes in, a fourth wall breaking action RPG whose main character knows you exist and controls them, all the while having to figure out a way to save the world.

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Oh, it turns out Cyberpunk 2077 is getting one more update after all, and it’s not too far away

Last year, CD Projekt Red released their final update for Cyberpunk 2077. Version 2.2 of the game added in fixes, a few more customisation options for you and your trusty steed (car), alongside some secrets. This version itself got patched with a few more fixes, but 2.2 was meant to be the last big one. Turns out, they lied! As in a stream held earlier today mostly to do with that new video game console that just came out with the kart driving plumber on it (more like Switch 2 another channel, am I right), CD Projekt Red shared that a 2.3 version is on the way to the open world game later this month.

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