Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Virtuos, the company best known for working with other studios to deliver the likes of Dark Souls Remastered, Oblivion Remastered and the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, are reportedly preparing to lay off staff. 300 people are cited as being at risk.

That’s according to reporting posted to Bluesky by Gauthier Andres of French outlet Origami. Andres’ post dropped same day Virtuos lead game designer Adrien Jouannet appeared on a Cyberpunk 2077 livestream to talk about the studio’s work with CD Projekt on the futuristic RPG’s latest update.

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“When our fathers stood against the Persians,” spake Greek statesman and general Pericles, “they had no such resources as we have now”. Time, of course, muddies the clear waters of specifics, but I’m basically sure he was talking about the ability for each of his men to keep a thirty foot ladder snuggled safely away in their rectal passage just in case they encountered any massive walls.

Which is probably where Total War got the idea from. Since launch, The Total War: Warhammer series has given each troop, from the lowliest Chaos Chosen to the bravest and most beautiful ratman, the ability to magic a ladder from nowhere during sieges. There’s a mod for Total War: Warhammer 3 that removes them, but now the end of arse ladders is getting official support, including tweaks to hopefully teach the AI how to behave without them.

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Counter-Strike surfing is a modded game mode for Valve’s bomb defusal FPS in which players skate through obstacle courses by means of a Source engine physics glitch. It has a proud history dating back to 2004, when modder Charles “Mariowned” Joyce discovered that it was far more enjoyable to slide off roofs than shoot people in his custom map Killbox. So he made a new map dedicated to sliding, The Gap. Thus the greasy chute that led to Alice0 (RPS in peace) hailing CS surfing as “the esport we deserve” in 2020.

People have crafted their own versions of the mode in games like Roblox, and Proper Game Developers such as Blizzard have seemingly taken inspiration – Overwatch‘s Lucio is surely a love letter to the mode. Now here comes SurfsUp, a free-to-play surfing game in the Godot Engine. Released this month, it’s been favourably compared to surf maps in Valve’s Counter-Strike 2, and is worth a pop even if you have no prior experience of counters or striking. Also, to clarify, it has nothing to do with that licensed penguin game for Xbox 360. Stand down, Cody Maverick groupies.

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Cyberpunk 2077‘s previously delayed update 2.3 drops tomorrow, July 17th, CD Projekt have revealed in their latest livestream. It’s mostly about giving you more options in terms of traversing the world, because adding in a whole metro system post-launch didn’t do enough in that regard.

The studio will not stop, even though they’re now making Cyberpunk 2. They’ve worked with fellow developers Virtuos to add-in some new cars, a taxi system, self-driving cars, and other stuff not related to getting from A to B.

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You already knew hectic 1v1 bullet sprayer Straftat was going to add 2v2 matches and a four-player free-for-all mode. You knew because I told you months ago. Don’t pretend you forgot. Please, it’s insulting. Anyway, the update that adds these modes arrived yesterday and it also adds – surprise! – a ton of new maps. Which brings the game’s total number of killing arenas to over 300. Straft THAT, other shooters.

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I hesitate to call Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator “the best organ trading sim of 2021”, because Cruelty Squad also came out in 2021 and I worry about starting a localised flame war. But it means Strange Scaffold’s sci-fi stockbroker sim was, at the very least, 2021’s second best organ trading sim. Nice to see it’s getting a sequel then, called… oh no. Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator.

“We aren’t monsters. You aren’t going to be trading babies,” says head of studio, Xalavier Nelson Jr. “You’re going to be trading stocks based on babies, which means you can short a baby.”

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Publishers Krafton have told workers at Subnautica 2 studio Unknown Worlds they would still get a promised bonus if they ship enough of the game by the end of 2026. In other words, they’ve been given an extension to hit their targets. The bonus money was in question after the surprise firing of senior staff a couple of weeks ago, and the enforced delay of the survival game by Krafton. After worker concerns and fan outrage, now the corp says “don’t worry, we’ll pay!” Although it’s not the huge $250 million they were originally supposed to.

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What happens when an unenforceable force meets an un-shut-uppable object? Cooperative monsterman shooter Killing Floor 3 found out this past Sunday, as players of its closed online stress test were asked to agree to a nondisclosure agreement (shared on Reddit) that would stay in effect for five years. Or four years, three hundred and fifty-four days after KF3 is supposed to launch, on July 24th.

Naturally, this was broken almost immediately, including by Twitch streamers clicking through the agreement live on air. In a forum post, developers Tripwire Interactive have since declared that they stopped bothering to enforce within the test’s first hour, and apologised for making such a mad demand in the first place. The post also confirms that another stress test – which PC players can still apply to join – is happening later today, Wednesday 16th, and won’t insist on any legal gagging at all.

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I liked Avowed, and having read through the notes for its summer update, patch 1.5, I reckon I’ll like it even more whenever I next decide to don the persona of a trickshotting Envoy.

This patch is the second of three seasonal updates Obsidian outlined that the game’d be getting over the course of this year. It’s brought a substantial rework of fighter and ranger skills, some extra unique weapons for you to get your mitts on, Steam Deck verification, plus a bunch of other tweaks and fixes.

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We are straining Rock Paper Shotgun’s innovative “News To Me, Anyway” subcategory to breaking point with Anoxic Depths: Caves Of The Yendori, a turn-based spelunking roguelite from Studio Tectorum. The scurvy bean-counters among you might protest that it came out 10 years ago, possibly before some of you were old enough to read, operate video games, or count beans. To you scurvy bean-counters I would say: if you’re going to be so picky about details, how about you help me remember which way is up, because I am stuck in an underwater cave.

I have maybe 12 breaths left in my oxygen cylinder, and all I can see is rock texture. The ladder to the surface could be a foot away or 20. Soon, my body shall join those of the divers who came before. Ye gods, I love being this confused in video games.

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