Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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Subscription models like Xbox Game Pass are “not properly valuing” developers, says former Bethesda exec

Former Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines has been chatting about the ups and downs of videogame subscription platforms, such as Microsoft’s Game Pass service, GeForce Now and whatever the hell Ubisoft are calling theirs at the minute. Subisoftscription? UbiPassPlus? Answers on a postcard.

Hines is broadly of the opinion that subscription platforms are failing many of the developers who sign up to publish through them, though he cautions that his experience is out-of-date – he retired from Bethesda in October 2023.

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Starfield’s second DLC might involve a “Terran Armada”, and that sounds quite whelming

Steam tells me I’ve spent 171 hours of my life to this point playing Starfield. It’s not an insignificant amount of time, but it pales in comparison to how long I’ve spent with the myriad other works of developers Bethesda. Said devs now look like they might have fired up the tease rocket for the space RPG‘s second major expansion. If they have, the very little they’ve shown off so far hasn’t gotten me right on board to play more.

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Hollow Knight: Silksong’s early mods sand off its more annoying edges, including double damage and distant spawns

Shhhhh. If we’re quiet, we might be able to avoid discourse with this one. If you’ve spent your weekend playing Hollow Knight: Silksong and found that the likes of enemies inflicting double damage and spawns being miles away put a dampner on the fun, mods can help.

I know, I know, these are videogames and we must take their difficulty with the utmost seriousness. How else are any of us supposed to learn important life lessons, like ‘press button dodge at this point’, unless we go through hours of frustration trying to beat one boss (or look such info up)? As such, I stress that these mods, like all mods, are entirely optional. No need to shout at people for using them. Save your voice for singing love ballads to Hornet during breaks in the action.

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Paradox take “first step” in response to Bloodlines 2’s DLC clan backlash with PlayStation refunds, promise more info next week

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 publisher Paradox have gotten the ball rolling on the “adjustments” they promised in response to the controversy over the game’s day-one paid DLC vampire clans.

As we’ve covered previously, the Toreador and Lasombra clans were originally revealed to be locked behind a purchase of either Bloodines’ £18.69/€21.99/$21.99 Shadows and Silk DLC pack, or the £74.99/€89.99/$89.99 premium edition that said DLC comes bundled with. Cue understandable unhappiness, and Paradox swiftly moving to declare they’d rejig some stuff before launch.

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Dryft racing, hip-hop and pirates: the cheeky, eclectic games of Aussie studio Nonsense Machine

For most of his game-making career, Australian developer dweedes has projected an image of cheeky, punkish rebellion. His website WET GAMIN has accumulated a trove of experimental games over the last decade: short works by various freeware developers that exemplify a scribbly, DIY spirit. Now, making and selling games on Steam under his studio Nonsense Machine, dweedes finds himself in the position of stepping up his commercial and craft ambitions while trying to stay true to his anti-corporate roots.

“I’ll put out games for free because it kind of lightens the load off my head,” he tells me as we chat over Discord. “I don’t have to market it, I don’t have to invest time in it. I just want to get the idea out, and then people can play it. There’s no quality target, so it’s fun for trying new ideas and throwing whatever you want out and not thinking too hard about it.”

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Photograph bosses to death in this head-pulsing whirligig of a bullet hell

I fear and covet no videogame genre on this Earth like the bullet hell shoot ’em up. I find these scions of the arcades irresistibly beautiful. They look like how I imagine human nervous systems appear to thunder spirits. By the same token, I’m not sure they’re actually designed to be processed by the human nervous system. They’re the kind of game the androids will play, once they’ve hunted down and incinerated the last of our kind.

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Devolver boss calls GTA 6 an “AAAAA game” in latest attack on human dignity

Not long before joining Rock Paper Shotgun, I wrote a feature for Edge magazine about the origins of the very silly term “AAA game”. The overall conclusion I came to is that “AAA game” is possibly a boardroom-level borrowing from the credit rating industry and Hollywood, and that it has little meaning beyond “most expensive/biggest”.

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RoadCraft’s first expansion adds a bridge layer, two new maps, and the option to make your life much tougher

The first bit of DLC for mud-splattered infrastructure setup sim RoadCraft has rumbled out of the garage, bringing with it a couple of new maps, several extra vehicles, and some extra-tough options for those craving a hard time.

One of those fresh rides is a bridge layer, and you best believe it’ll end up wedged somewhere improbable with its wheels spinning helplessly once I get my hands on it. How can you mess up motoring towards a gap, and pressing the ‘commence bridgening’ button? It’ll be possible.

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