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January 12th, 2026. It’s my next birthday, and also now the date that BioWare exosuit shooter Anthem will finally be taken offline. I very much assume the two things are unrelated.
The live-service thing that EA abandoned doing live-service stuff for not that long after its well-documentedly difficult development was followed by a lukewarm release is finally going the way of the dodo.
Sorry, historical farming village folk. You live in the sea now. Ok, fine. By the sea. But that’s the best we can do. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord‘s War Sails expansion is due this Autumn, and TaleWorlds have put out a new deep dive blog covering what to expect from the big battle strategy RPG‘s first foray into wavely warfare. Shiver me tambourines and other such phrases that would have confused a viking, here’s the first trailer in case you missed it.
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Today’s gaming deals are stacked, I’m so hyped. We’ve got premium laptops with decent discounts, curved OLED monitors, and high-refresh powerhouses, all with serious price cuts. A couple of these are big hitters from HP and ASUS with RTX 5080 GPUs inside, while the LG and Samsung monitors are flying under $800 thanks to that JULYFINDS coupon on eBay (don’t forget to apply it at checkout).
Thigs continue to sound not very ok at MindsEye developers Build A Rocket Boy. Around the same time as an” an ongoing redundancy process has reportedly seen all 300 of the studio’s UK staff sent emails informing them they’re at risk of losing their jobs, game director Leslie Benzies has allegedly told them BARB will somehow relaunch the troubled game.
Yeah, exactly. You what, Leslie? That’s the same Leslie who also reportedly blamed the rocky time MindsEye’s had following its launch on what IGN calls “internal and external saboteurs” in its latest report.
Romero Games have announced in the wake of mass layoffs at Microsoft that funding for their next shooter has been pulled by its publisher. A number of former staff at the studio founded by Doom co-creator John Romero and Brenda Romero have since written on social media that they’ve lost their jobs as part of those MS cuts.
A statement posted to Romero Games‘ Twitter account attributed to Brenda Romero asserts that the game’s publisher, which it didn’t name, had opted to pull the funding for it “along with several other unannounced projects at other studios”.
It’s been a long time since the last major Manor Lords update and it’ll likely be a while till the next. This might strike you as dismal news, if you adhere to the “death by a thousand patches” school of Steam early access, but you have to remember that Manor Lords is a city builder set in late 14th-century Franconia, when technology lolled along at the pace of a dying ox. Also, the developers Slavic Magic are carrying out a “full rework” of the game, rather than dolling things out in smaller patches. In particular, there’s a new building affinity system in development that may please fans of pollination. Any flowers reading this? The next update is for you, I guess.
The Perfect Dark reboot looked like an excellent addition to the immersive sim genre. Based on Microsoft’s previous shuttering of Arkane Austin, I can only assume that this made Phil Spencer very angry. “Why can I lift massive crates but only fit one rifle in my inventory!”, roared Spencer. Subsequently, both the reboot and studio The Initiative were axed this week by Microsoft as part of their ongoing efforts to ensure their legacy going forward is one of destroying livelihoods, participating in what a UN rapporteur describes as an “economy of genocide”, and forcing Copilot inside that little plastic bit at the end of your shoelaces.
Three former higher-ups at Ubisoft have been found guilty of sexually and psychologically harassing the women who worked for them at the company’s Paris studio. A French court handed out suspended sentences to the three executives, as well as fines, the highest of which was €45,000. It’s the final ruling in a sordid trial that has seen the men accused of forcefully trying to kiss female employees, ordering them to do handstands in skirts, and angrily throwing equipment across the office.
Hey, deez two. Sorry, Hades 2 has just gotten a fresh patch following on from its beefy Unseen update last month. The big news? Supergiant say this latest batch of tweaks “will likely be our final patch before our v1.0 launch”.
Damn, maybe it’s time for me to dive back in and get some extra practice taking down those pesky sirens that try to smite you mid-gig like they’re aquatic Van Halen. Ok, maybe I actually mean fire the game back up to stare at Narcissus. Sue me.
Edwin gave Ostrich Farm header honours in this week’s Maw, and with good reason I think. “Breed vibrant ostriches”, he wrote. I misread it as “breed violent ostriches” and got excited. I still liked the concept even after realising my mistake. I pinned the Steam page tab (aka “The Coward’s Wishlist”), and forgot about it for a couple of days.
This morning, I clicked on the tab again while browser tidying. “I wonder how Steam likes the ostrich game?”, I mused. One review. A single, negative review. “The performance tanked for me once I had around 70 ostriches and made the game totally unplayable”.
