Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Labyrinth Of The Demon King is the concentrated awfulness of Silent Hill and Amnesia: The Dark Descent thrown into a toilet bowl with the stamina-based combat of From Software’s old King’s Field RPGs. Released this week, it is squalid, lumbering, vicious, desperate and untrustworthy.

The setting is “mythical feudal Japan” – a time of devilry, manual savepoints, and dither filters. The story objective is to track down and slay the yokai boss who led your lord into an ambush. I do not greatly rate my chances. Currently, I am exploring a house full of bloated, whispering fungus and screechy little filthbastards with abbreviated limbs. The filthbastards all want to butcher me but they are no less keen to murder each other. As far as they’re concerned, I am just another filthbastard among many.

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An artist has accused Bungie of plagiarising her designs and using them in upcoming first-person shooter Marathon. The artist, who creates futuristic posters under the name Antireal (or “4nt1r34l”), posted images of her own work alongside screenshots from Marathon’s recent alpha playtest, showing that some designs have been copied. Bungie have confirmed this is the case, but lay the blame on one former artist at the studio.

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Not actually a stealth FPS hybrid of Blood and Thief – although I’d pay good money for that – Bloodthief is closer to something like Ghostrunner but also, I think, much better. The Steam demo‘s opening levels are roughly as tricky and demanding as the cyberpunk parkour series but, perhaps to due to less concern with being stylish, the movement here feels a lot more caffeinated. You only have to look at the visuals to clock that Bloodthief isn’t that sort of game that’s precious about letting you do silly things with momentum.

Also you’re a vampire, with a sword, exsanguinating armoured knights in a vaguely Germanic medieval town. Well, Vae my Victus. I do get very excited when anything reminds me, even a little, of Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain. Here’s a nice little video of the game in action. Warning: this trailer for the game Bloodthief has blood in it.

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Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios are cooking. I’m not exactly sure what just yet, but there’s a faint aroma of a new game in the air, and it doesn’t seem like they’re ready to share anything about the game right now either. Still, after the runaway success of Helldivers 2, something new from the studio is still an exciting prospect. Interestingly enough though, whatever they’re making, it won’t have anything to do with PlayStation when it comes to funding.

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That Hideo Kojima is a bit of an odd chap, ‘ey? It was only recently he said that he wants to make a game where the protagonist forgets their own abilities if you, the player, take a long break between play sessions. As a reminder this comes from the guy who made a whole game about delivering packages, another game where a character can die of old age if you wait long enough, and another game that knows if you’ve played Castlevania or not. The guy likes doing things differently!

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Fancy a jaunt back into The Zone? GSC Game World released the long awaited Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl last November, steadling improving it after an (understandably) rocky launch. There’s been several hefty updates for the sequel released along the way, and it turns out the developer has been even busier than expected. GSC Game World announced Stalker: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition today, a revamp of the original three games, Shadow of Chornobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Prypiat, that mostly brings in some visual upgrades.

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There’s a newish Persona game on the way next month, and it is, of course, yet another Persona 5 spinoff. I’m not sure if another cow in existence has been so thoroughly milked before, but here we are. I call Persona 5: The Phantom X (that’s its name, by the way) newish because it’s actually been available in China through an ongoing open beta for the last year. Earlier today, Atlus held a pre-recorded livestream confirming that the mobile game is finally coming westward, and that it’ll be getting a PC release as well.

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You know what got announced a little over three years ago now? Kingdom Hearts 4. You know what hasn’t had a single new trailer in that time? Ding ding ding! If you said Kingdom Hearts 4, you don’t win anything because the direction of this bit was pretty obvious. The game still doesn’t have a new trailer, by the way, but the series’ official Blue Sky account did oh so generously offer up a handful of screenshots today which do show off some new bits (mostly).

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Into To The Restless is a roguelite dungeon crawler where you build the dungeon as you go. I really enjoyed the demo, and the full game is out today. In a show of confidence I always appreciate, the demo is also still available. Launch trailer below. It’s got a quote from one of my articles in it, although they opted not to use the phrase “like hailstones battering the word ‘bum’ into soft cement” for some reason. Perplexing times we live in.

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Grotesque new platform game Gennady takes place in a squelchy, eminently punchable world of procedurally generated, wriggling alien cubes. Burst a cube and you’ll be rewarded with juicy, golden maggots and a shower of delightful green ooze. Sometimes the ooze spawns a grotty little janitor monster, who slinks up behind you with mop in tentacle. Yes, this is a game in which the filth tries to clean up after itself. Good luck with that, filth. Here’s a trailer.

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