If you’re fond of the fairly specific blend of doomy theology, rich art direction and Soulslike-tinted metroidvaning encapsulated by Blasphemous, you might also enjoy Saviorless from Cuban team Empty Head Games and publisher Dear Villagers, which now has a PC release date of 2nd April.
Pocketpair have popped up a trailer for Palworld‘s first new raid battle boss, Bellanoir, who is “coming soon” to the monster-catching survival game in a big old Palworld update that will also include some fixes and additional anti-cheating measures. First impressions: it’s an evil Goth girl with a jellyfish where her legs should be.
This being a Palworld story, the (SFW) reactions I’ve read on social media and reddit fall into two categories. Firstly, which Pokemon is this one based on? The consensus seems to be that it’s a moodier version of Gardevoir, though in Pocketpair’s defence, comparisons are also being drawn with Palworld’s own Lyleen Noct. And secondly, what work suitability does this one have? Because there is no Pal so magnificent and terrible that it can’t be beaten up, Palsphered and demoted to chopping wood or tending a furnace.
🚨Attention Pal Tamers🚨A powerful evil Pal has appeared and is laying siege to the Palpagos Islands! Only the most skilled Pal Tamers stand a chance against her…Palworld’s first raid, Bellanoir, is coming soon! pic.twitter.com/jZ4iWVl1Qk
Final Factory has already impressed via a couple of demos. It’s effectively ‘Factorio in space’: you construct space bases by chaining together machinery, protect by commanding ships and turrets to fight off alien invaders, then explore the galaxy to secure more resources.
It’s now got an Early Access release date: April 9th.
As if colony sim RimWorld doesn’t already have enough ways for your sci-fi frontier adventurers to die, a new expansion titled Anomaly is goiong to add “all manner of monstrous, mysterious, and maddening threats”. It’s out in around a month, and will be paired with a free 1.5 update for the base game.
Helldivers 2‘s Cutting Edge Premium warbond, aka DLC battle pass, is now available to buy in-game, and it is chock-full of oddball gadgetry such as lightning shotguns, burst-fire laser rifles and experimental armour. As with the Arc Thrower stratagem, the lightning shotgun fires arcs of electricity that conduct between players and enemies alike, but there’s a fresh armour perk, Electrical Conduit, which reduces arc damage by 95%, allowing close-knit teams of Helldivers to roll around the battlefield frazzling themselves without much penalty.
Still, I think the real star pick here is surely the Localization Confusion booster, which extends the time between enemy spawns, allowing weirdo solo players such as myself to disentangle from a dragged-out gunfight a little more gracefully.
You wouldn’t know because she hardly ever mentions it, but Alice Bee is not a Ready Player One fan. In fairness, the newly revealed Open (or Opthreen), a RPO-themed metaverse battle royale thing, does look, sound, feel, and smell horrible, so a solid chunk of this week’s Electronic Wireless Show podcast is just us despairing over it. But there’s also some honest-to-goodness games chat, as we field a question from EWS listener Pete (thanks Pete!) on the games our younger selves were parentally forbidden from playing – and how we feel about them as ostensible grownups.
This week’s announcement that Embracer are selling off Saber Interactive to new company Beacon Interactive has cast further doubt over the future of one of Embracer’s bigger projects, the much-delayed Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic remake. While Embracer have yet to actually state this out loud, it sounds like the KOTOR remake will be a “joint project” between Saber and Embracer. It also probably won’t be out in the next 12 months. Given the project’s repeated disruptions and delays, I suspect many of us will settle for the game coming out at all.
Crow Country and its spooky, mutant-stuffed theme park will be opening its gates on Steam on May 9th, developers SFB Games have announced. It’s the first of two games from the Tangle Tower micro-studio coming to PC this year, the other one being The Mermaid’s Tongue, which will be picking up the adventures of their Tangle Tower detective duo on a marginally less spooky-looking submarine later this year. Crow Country, however, is a very different kettle of fish, combining chunky, PS1-style Final Fantasy 7 character models with early Resident Evil tank controls and panicked monster shooting.
Saber Interactive have parted ways with Embracer Group, buying back the rights to both themselves and numerous other studios in a deal initially valued at $247 million. The deal includes 38 ongoing game development projects plus the rights to 3D Realms, Slipgate Ironworks, New World Interactive, Nimble Giant, Mad Head, Digic, Fractured Byte and PR agency Sandbox Strategies, as well as Metro developers 4A Games and Pinball FX maker Zen Studios via options.
While we felt it wasn’t an amazing game, we quite liked The Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria’s dwarven survival antics. It was a bit of cosy fun for a group of pals, and thankfully, open-ended co-op play looks to be the focus of the next big update, which adds a new sandbox mode that lets you pick rocks and sink pints free of storyline constraints. Not to mention new armour, weapons, and quality of life improvements like the ability to pause your single player sessions.