The Maw: what's new in PC games this week?
Blops 6, The Axis Unseen, Factorio Space Age and, you guessed it, more
Happy this week, everybody! In my efforts to achieve the absolute tranquility needed to spend five days shovelling PC game news stories into a ravenous otherworldly monster, I often go for an early morning walk. I tend to do this while wearing my trusty, enveloping Honcho Poncho, because the UK summer is thoroughly behind us and the very air has begun to squelch. Anyway, while walking this morning I think I actually scared somebody into crossing the road. It turns out roaming around at sunrise near Halloween looking like a ringwraith is a great way to become a figure of menace. Sorry, neighbour! I'll wear that nice top hat and opera mask from my socialite days in future. Anyway, let us FEED THE MAW.
We open Monday 21st October with a fat nourishing dollop of infrastructure: the early access launch of Railroad Corporation 2 and the debut of Factorio's Space Age expansion. On Tuesday 22nd October, The Axis Unseen is here to spill heavy metal all over your Skyrim, while No More Room In Hell 2 caters to the undead-fanciers. Wednesday 23rd October is the birthday of the almost offensively chillaxed picture-puzzler Wilmot Works It Out, together with sumptuous deck-and-city builder Technotopia, but perhaps you'd prefer to be a horrible fly. Thursday 24th October sees a small army of indie releases and relative obscurities weathering the blast clouds generated by the launch of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 - that's smalltown Japanese life sim Shin Chan: Shiro And The Coal Town, the enchantingly dreary FPS Straftat, dynasty management RPG remake Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge Of The Seven, and Dead Cell's dashing younger sibling Windblown. As for Friday 25th October - well, let's keep it straightforward and pick just the one game, anime Star Foxer Rogue Flight.
You know the score: these are only my recommendations and might be shit. Your picks might differ. Should differ. Please give me a hard time in the comments. No really, I crave correction. Beyond that, please find our news liveblog below with the usual fitful landslide of gossip, and have an enjoyable week.
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
MAWNFUL MONDAY
Break out the ladles and head to the battlements! The Maw, it must be fed. FEED IT.The final trailer for Factorio's Space Age expansion. We shall build ourselves a conveyor belt that girdles the universe.
Strinova is an upcoming free-to-play anime shooter in which your characters can transform into 2D objects - turning themselves sideways to shrink their profiles, or wafting through the air like paper planes. It's got a demo.
Fachewachewa says: Tormenture releases today! It's a cool mix of Inscryption and Adventure (the game). You're a kid playing on your not-atari in a creepy room at night. It's full of secrets and the cursed game obviously starts leaking into reality
Oh yeah, I should have included this one in the round-up. Seems like a goer.
Our strange bedfellows the Ian Games networkers have been talking to Black Ops 6 developers about the game's campaign, which has apparently had more time on the hob than Modern Warfare 3's poorly received singleplayer. "I do feel like we had good opportunities to keep crafting and recrafting the missions until we were happy with them," says Jon Zuk, associate creative director.
Total conversion mod Fallout: Vault 13, which aimed to rebuild the original Fallout inside Fallout 4, is, alas, no longer in development.
TAWRRIBLE TUESDAY
The Maw has sprouted caterpillar tracks! That's going to make a real mess of the lawn. Take up trowels and sprinklers and see if you can lure it into the treeline. FEED THE MAW.As reported by VGC, Dave The Diver is getting some proper story DLC, and developers Mintrocket are also thinking about spin-off games for particular characters.
The Caves Of Qud developer is teasing something with a cryptic riddle. "{n} purple wardens beseech the Chair, What is death, if one rose is fair? How long from beetle moon to beetle moon?" At least one fan in the comments of this Steam post knows their lore enough to have translated this as: 12/5/24. That seems like a possible release date for version 1.0.
Dungeons Of Hinterberg has been updated with a New Game+ mode. To celebrate, it's also 50% off on Steam till 4th November.
Here's the launch trailer for Romancing SaGA 2: Revenge Of The Seven.
Delta Force's open beta commences on 5th December.
WAWFUL WEDNESDAY
Up periscope and feed the Maw!Hark, a new trailer for the Soul Reaver remasters, showing us the redesigned bosses.
State Of Decay 2 has received its final update, as developers Undead Labs switch over to full production on State Of Decay 3. "In this update we are addressing long-standing issues, introducing various Quality of Life improvements, and permanently unlocking previously gated or seasonal content, such as the Wizard Van and Winter outfits," they write.
Lethal Company is one year old. To celebrate, the developer has temporarily added birthday hats. Also, an "8% chance of a hoarding bug infestation". What's more, "buying and keeping furniture in the ship now gains you 'luck', which is factored into the amount that the quota increases when you fulfill it."
THAWTFUL THURSDAY
All the bullets in the arsenal have become baubles. The Maw must have caught some of that pre-Xmas retail fever. FEED IT.SeekerX says: In free updates to existing games -- on Thursday 10/24, Slay the Princess is releasing a big update called The Pristine Cut, expanding the base game by like 35%. This sounds cool! And it totally justifies me having bought the base game and never gotten around to playing it because the friends I wanted to play it with got to it before I did. I was just saving the experience for the definitive version, really! https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1989270/view/4661877875513622264
I have yet to Slay Any Princesses despite seeing the game before launch and thinking 'this is probably going to be a Thing'. Perhaps I'll manage to give the Pristine Cut a whirl.
Stardust Demon looks like a very swish action-platformer.
Game Developer have a lengthy insider report on the blockchain company Forte Labs' purchase of Dauntless developers Phoenix Labs and Towers and Titans developers Rumble Games. According to unnamed former employees, Forte asked studio staff to keep the acquisition secret, even describing it as confidential information in hiring contracts. Game Developer suggests that one motivation may have been to avoid bad press regarding games with blockchain functionality.
Here's that Dragon Age: The Veilguard launch trailer for you, then.
And here's the early access launch trailer for Windblown, the new roguelike actioner from original Dead Cells devs Motion Twin.
FRAWT FRIDAY
A mist descends upon London - feels like a descendant of the old Victorian peasoupers. What do we call them these days - nitrogen fondues? Break out the infra-red and FEED THE MAW!A SURPRISE NEW BEHEMOTH GAME. It's out 31st October, and it's sort of... Flappy Birds X Lemmings with a dash of Katamari Damacy?
Vile is a found doc horror game from DreadXP dev Cara Cadaver in which you look through a serial killer's computer to learn the fate of adult film star Candy Corpse. Here's the trailer. Maybe don't watch it if you're feeling glum or frazzled, as it's obviously rather disturbing. Here's the Steam page.
Some splattergun footage from Nightdive's remaster of The Thing video game.
As PCGamer note, Baldur's Gate 3 does look surprisingly convincing as a first-person RPG.
A modder has recreated slicey touchscreen game Fruit Ninja as a Counter-Strike 2 aim trainer, via Percy Coswald Gamer.