Oneway.exe is the tale of an abandoned game that really, really wants your skin(s)

I have come to the conclusion that it was a mistake to play the demo for cyber horror game Oneway.exe on my lunch break. I’m not going to tell you what I had for lunch – I think if I describe it in full, I will throw up. But I will say that it featured red peppers and purple onions, and I now wish never to see those colours ever again.

Also, it’s possible that I’m still playing the demo for Oneway.exe, because the game takes place inside an off-brand mock-up of a desktop operating system. Yes, we are in Everything Is Going To Be OK territory. Hypnospace Outlaw-ville. Pony Island, er, land. But you never saw quite such… sights in either of those games, as far as I can remember. You never saw such reds and purples. You never saw such delightful little piggies.

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Medieval city builder Farthest Frontier says good knight to early access with its 1.0 release today

A new day, a new city builder! Today the particular entry in this far reaching genre we’re talking about is Farthest Frontier, because it’s leaving early access after more than three years in development. If you’ve never heard of it before, the simple answer is that Farthest Frontier is a medieval city builder. The longer answer includes all the things it does.

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Microsoft pushing for profits “well above the industry average” is reportedly behind Xbox’s layoff and cancellation misery

The bit of reporting I’m about to relay to you probably isn’t surprising, but it’s worth making sure you’ve got a pillow on standby to scream into once you’ve digested it. Microsoft, they of more money than a company could ever need or know what to do with, have reportedly spent the last two years pushing Xbox to deliver profit margins which are well above the industry average. Cue all of the layoffs, cancellations, and shutterings.

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Ubisoft want to trim down The Division developers and are pivoting Trials creators Redlynx to mobile

Two Ubisoft studios have announced plans to cut back staff, though one of them is trying to encourage people to lay themselves off in the form of “a voluntary career transition program”. The studios in question are Ubisoft Massive – creators of Tom Clancy’s The Division, Star Wars Outlaws, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – and Ubisoft Redlynx, creators of the multiplayer gadabout Trials biking games.

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Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 devs provide workarounds for “high priority” bugs, including Seattle’s populace disappearing

Paradox have outlined some workarounds for a number of “high priority” issues which have been draining folks’ ability to get sucked into Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 now the gates to Seattle are open. Proper fixes for these and other known issues are also in the works, as is planning for post-release additions.

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RV There Yet? is a dad-core co-op game about doing a very bad job driving home from your campervan vacation

It’s really quite interesting how, in a time where big budget live service games are doing anything they can to get you to continue playing (and importantly spend money on) them, the sort of spiritual opposite of this to rise out of this are games where you just hang out with a few buds doing silly nonsense that don’t cost very much. Lethal Company, Peak, you know the kinds of games I mean, and yesterday a new one I quite like the look of arrived: RV There Yet?

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Arrowhead need just a smidge more time for that next Helldivers 2 patch, promises a healthy suite of optimisations

You might be currently wondering where the latest Helldivers 2 patch is, seeing as it hasn’t turned up yet, and to explain its absence developer Arrowhead have taken to the game’s Witter account with a post going into some details about it. Apparently it was originally planned for Tuesday, i.e. yesterday, October 21st, but a “last-minute certification issue caused a delay.”

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Palworld dev Pocketpair, famous for making wholly original games, won’t publish your game if it uses generative AI

Earlier this year, Palworld developer Pocketpair used its newfound success to start a publishing arm. This, I think, is generally a net good, even if I have some feelings about the studio as a whole, which we’ll dig into shortly. Nobody has money in this industry except for the few who do, so when a few of the few who do decide to put some of that money into much smaller games, that is somewhat of a win. But heed this warning from Pocketpair’s communications director and publishing manager John Buckley: they won’t publish your game if you use generative AI.

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The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria’s first expansion launches next month, even if gameplay is currently MIA

It’s been more than a year since The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria first launched, and now it seems like the survival crafting game’s first proper expansion is right around the corner. Developer Free Range Games shared a new trailer yesterday, which was roughly Durin’s Day, a rare Dwarven event in the world of Middle-earth, appropriately revealing the release date for said expansion, Durin’s Folk.

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