Ah, it feels just like yesterday when Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector had around a year of development time left. Actually, I’d say it feels like it precisely around February 2nd of this year. Well, would you look at that. It seems making excellent RPGs isn’t Jump Over The Age’s only skill. They’ve also predicted the exact release of their game to within a 3 day margin of error: the actual release date is the 31st of January, 2025.
FPS Abyssus is allowed to call itself ‘brinepunk’ but you all need to stop this nonsense immediately afterward
Anyone who is not trying to sell your something will tell you that ‘punk’ is a mostly meaningless term, mainly popularised by Malcolm McLaren and Vivian Westwood so they could sell bondage gear to teenagers. It is, of course, very punk of me to recognise this. However, this hasn’t stopped every other videogame released in the last 74 years trying to coin their own punk subgenre. The latest to do so is ‘brinepunk’ FPS Abyssus, which seems to have mostly arrived at the terms by being ‘a bit Steampunk, but underwater’. Abyssus looks cool, and so with the power vested in me by the Greggs vegan sausage roll I had for lunch today, I hereby declare that this is the last game allowed to do this. Let’s see if it’s making the most of it, at least.
I’ve changed my mind – Mekkablood: Quarry Assault is the only good videogame
Covering announcement shows mean saving oneself for huge reveals, and since I might be the only person in the world right now this excited for FPS Mekkablood: Quarry Assault, I wondered if it might be better to hold off until a less pressing time. And then I thought, no: the people need to know. Not about the game itself, since it’s been announced for a while. Simply that I, personally, cannot resist a first person mech game where you have a fast food beverage inside your cockpit. It’s an extremely niche set of parameters and I’m elated it’s finally been fulfilled. Let’s chuffing gooooooooo!
Here’s a new trailer for Menace, the turn-based mechwar RPG from the Battle Brothers devs
There was a crowded second there when I read the press release and thought they’d militarised the Beano, but Menace is not, in fact, about Dennis the Menace joining the Colonial Marines. It’s the new turn-based tactics RPG from the creators of Battle Brothers, and look at that, it has a freshly deployed gameplay trailer.
Probably-magnificent mystery house puzzler Blue Prince will release in spring 2025
Dogubomb’s Blue Prince boasts my favourite shapeshifting house in a video game, which admittedly isn’t setting a very high bar. Perhaps surprisingly, most video game houses do not shapeshift. Despite being made out of pure imagination and carbon emissions, they remain nostalgically shackled to the limitations of brick, mortar and Euclidean geometry. Blue Prince’s abode is different. It is a house made of house. You’ll actually design the layout yourself every time you wander through it, picking from a selection of mismatched room types whenever you open a door.
The Thing: Remastered review: a fantastic remaster of a game best observed from a distance
Nightdive, you done good. The Thing: Remastered is an ultra-sharp and commendably playable update to a game that history will remember as ‘actually a pretty good pick at Choices when you really just popped in to get some Revels but got embarrassed when the till staffer said “is that everything?” in a tone that could have been neutral but equally could have been a damning indictment of your character’.
I’m being slightly facetious here, of course. History actually remembers Computer Artworks’s 2002 shooty horror game for how incredibly ambitious and conceptually inventive its proto-sus social squad system was. In homage to the body-snatching alien paranoia of Carpenter’s 1982 horror classic, The Thing tasks you with not just assembling and directing a squad, but keeping them from breaking down or turning on you – in fear you might be hosting the titular molecular stowaway.
In ocean co-op horror Darkwater you can ride a torpedo through an infested submarine’s hull
Some day, somebody’s going to make a cosy or wholesome submarine game, in which the submarine does not sprout leaks, does not run out of O2, and is never once invaded by any octopod-raddled zombies. That day is not today. Today there is only icy darkness and suffocation. Say “hello” and probably also “AIEEEEBLubLBBLBLBL” to Darkwater, a new co-op horror extraction game in which you brave the frigid oceans of an alien moon.
Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a stealth ’em up that’s a bit Desperados, a bit Dunwall
The demimimise of Mimimi means I’m now on the lookout for my next opportunity to crouch behind a hedge, distract a man with a stone or coin, and then choke him unconscious. (And in the game.) Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream looks like a worthy candidate. Announced last year, there’s now a new trailer showing the isometric (isometrish?) narrative stealth in action.
Drivers Of The Apocalypse combines Mad Max with the vehicle-grappling of Just Cause
The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are War, Famine, Death and Pestilence. The Drivers of the Apocalypse are Grappling Hooks, Vehicle Swapping, Boss Battles and Upgrades. You’ll get to meet all four of the latter in the video game of the same name, a combat racer from Dinosaurs Are Better (citation needed) and their publishers Bonus Stage.
Total Chaos is a grimy horror FPS from the Turbo Overkill devs
I think It’s safe to say that Trigger Happy Interactive’s upcoming survival horror Total Chaos is a bit of a palette change from their last offering – the frenetic, neon-drenched, chainsaw-legged Turbo Overkill. Still, it’s not often we see psychological horror combined with ultraviolence, and anything that gives off even a whiff of Condemned: Criminal Origins has my attention.
Total Chaos started life as a popular Doom 2 mod, and while I dare the say the limitations of that game sell the atmosphere a little better than this much sleeker update, I certainly trust Trigger Happy enough to make the most of the new engine. The game is set in New Oasis, a “once bustling haven for coal miners” that is now most definitely not bustling, nor haven-like.