The Maw: what’s new in PC games this week? x

A modder has recreated slicey touchscreen game Fruit Ninja as a Counter-Strike 2 aim trainer, via Percy Coswald Gamer.

As PCGamer note, Baldur’s Gate 3 does look surprisingly convincing as a first-person RPG.

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Some splattergun footage from Nightdive’s remaster of The Thing video game.

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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.

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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?

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I think Nic is already writing this up, but – PCGamer has a report on the development of middling shooter adaptation The Bureau: XCOM Declassified written by Jeremy “We Still Love Him” Peel. It covers various interesting abandoned prototypes.

As suggested a few months ago, Overwatch 2 is indeed trying out the return of 6v6 player matches. There will be two separate playtests in season 14.

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!

And here’s the early access launch trailer for Windblown, the new roguelike actioner from original Dead Cells devs Motion Twin.

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Here’s that Dragon Age: The Veilguard launch trailer for you, then.

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Monster DNA is an Itch game latterly upgraded into a full Steam release in which you cook up horrible creatures in a lab. There’s a demo on Steam.

Blizzard have announced a ‘Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct’ taking place 13th November, via our brothers-in-Ziff Eurogamer. “You won’t want to miss a moment – or a single surprise,” they say. For extra copium, notice how they also mention Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. Yes, something needs doing, Blizzard. It’s needed doing since 2003.

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.

As revealed on the Assassin’s Creed discord, via Dualshockers, Ubisoft have stripped the three-day early access bonus from the Assassin’s Creed Shadows Collectors Edition.

It was Fallout Day yesterday, as in, the start of the nuclear apocalypse in the world of Fallout. Happy Octoberween to you too, Bethesda. To celebrate, they’ve made a few announcements. Fallout 76 is getting a Gleaming Depths expansion – a big old-fashioned MMO raid. They’re also adding pets to campsites, and letting you play as a Ghoul. “Playing as a ghoul opens up many new playstyles with the addition of ghoul-specific Perk cards and a new Feral meter,” the blog notes. “You won’t need to worry about hunger or thirst but remember, some people and factions just don’t take kindly to ghouls.”

We missed Pip My Dice’s demo during Next Fest. It’s Balatro, but for yahtzee not poker. You can stamp your own modifiers on individual dice faces, much as you can deface the cards in localthunk’s game. Seems like it has potential.

Stardust Demon looks like a very swish action-platformer.

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Ubisoft have confirmed to Eurogamer that a new Rayman project is currently in the “exploration phase” at their Montpelier and Milan studios, following an Insider Gaming report. I imagine some of the people who worked on Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown are now working on that.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

“It is hard to really define exactly what a “live service” game is nowadays,” says Saber Interactive’s Tim Willits. I think he is not wrong.

Remedy think they “overdid it a little bit” with Alan Wake 2’s jumpscares, the cowards.

Hark, a new trailer for the Soul Reaver remasters, showing us the redesigned bosses.

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Via Eurogamer, Telltale have stated that The Wolf Among Us 2 is still in development following a reddit rumour that the project is at a “critical point where they might have no choice but to shelve it”.

WAWFUL WEDNESDAY

Up periscope and feed the Maw!

NCSoft are carrying out a round of mass layoffs, though I don’t have the language skills (and trust in auto-translation software) to pass on details.

Delta Force’s open beta commences on 5th December.

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Here’s the launch trailer for Romancing SaGA 2: Revenge Of The Seven.

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Dungeons Of Hinterberg has been updated with a New Game+ mode. To celebrate, it’s also 50% off on Steam till 4th November.

Splendid free RPG Moonring has received a major update. “Welcome to The World of Wang!” declares the developer, before hastily clarifying that “Wang” refers to a new dungeon generation system that uses “Herringbone Wang Tiles”. It’s apparently much faster than what they had before.

As reported by Gamefile, Netflix have shut down their flagship “AAA” development studio Team Blue. According to 343 and Bungie veteran Joseph Staten, who joined Team Blue in spring 2023, the studio were once working on “a brand-new AAA multiplatform game and original IP”.

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.

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.

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 passed on by Gamesradar, Persona director Katsura Hashino has told Famitsu he’s already got another RPG project in mind after Metaphor: ReFantazio.

Total conversion mod Fallout: Vault 13, which aimed to rebuild the original Fallout inside Fallout 4, is, alas, no longer in development.

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.

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.

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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.

The final trailer for Factorio’s Space Age expansion. We shall build ourselves a conveyor belt that girdles the universe.

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No more ‘shitty’ games, promises Silent Hill 2 Remake developer Bloober Team, via VGC.

A new retranslation mod for Final Fantasy 7 aims to be as close to the original Japanese as possible, via PC Gamer.

MAWNFUL MONDAY

Break out the ladles and head to the battlements! The Maw, it must be fed. FEED IT.