The Maw - 20th-25th May 2024
This week's heartiest videogames, plus our weekly newsblog
Live
This week on RPS: secret plans and clever tricks. Also, a bunch of new videogames, none of them particularly Enormous or Crocodilian. We open on Monday 20th May with the extremely Alice B-friendly combo of Little-Known Galaxy, aka Stardew Valley meets Star Trek, and A Tower Full Of Cats, a hidden object puzzler featuring a tower full of dogs, I mean cats. All very upbeat. Well, hold that thought, because on the 21st, it's time for Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, another slice of Celtic sort-of-psychosis from Ninja Theory, which is as grim as the accompanying Paper Trail is *checks Nic's review* incredibly annoying?
On 22nd May there's Venture To The Vile, a 2.5D metroidvania which is already doing a nice line in background animations and scenery, RKGK/Rakugaki, a 3D platformer in which you are a graffiti artist tagging up a neo-brutalist city, and Isles Of Sea & Sky, which is Zelda but also sokoban. 23rd May introduces the long-anticipated Hauntii, a ghostly twin-stick puzzle-shooter rendered in two-tone line art, and Crown Wars: The Black Prince, which is sort of XCOM but French and from the 14th century. On the 24th, there's a reboot of Devil Blade, a 1996 shmup with a pretty glorious mix of sprites and 3D environments.
As ever, these recommendations are but the perishable emissions of our crumbling mortal intellects, and we have doubtless skimmed over one or more videogames of note. I trust you'll be getting all up in my grill about that in the comments. Also as ever, this week's videogames are manna for the Maw, that atrocious quantum edifice of famine and plunder, which we must once again try to appease by means of the below newsblog. I've been working on a glossary of Maw vocalisations. I'm pretty sure that "BZZTYGHTAHJHJ" is Mawese for "Fallout 5 release date", while "xh'nglar ghhgrhjw'nafh" means "is Wuthering Wave leftist" and "EEEEEEEEEEEEE" translates to "Microsoft opens new studio". Have a fun week all.
Gacha game of the moment Wuthering Waves plans to let you skip more scenes and improve combat in the future, as devs Kuro Games offer some in-game goodies as apology for the open-world RPG's rocky launch earlier this week.
The Sims 4's developers have assembled a new team to focus on fixing bugs and upping performance, with updates now due to land every two months. That'll kick off with a patch later this month that includes fixes for summoning a cheese toastie, among others.
Animal Well creator plans to follow the superb Metroidvania with a game that shares its world but “may not be a direct sequel”.
IT'S FRIDAY I'M IN FRIDAY
Fifth day already this week, sheer madness.THURSDAY DOESN'T EVEN START
...WEDNESDAY, ALTHOUGH I'D QUITE LIKE TO GO BACK TO THE FIRST HALF OF TUESDAY AND JUST STAY THERE
UGHShadow Of The Erdtree's story trailer premieres 3pm UTC/11am EST/4pm BST. Here's it:
The upcoming Sims-like kitchen disaster simulator Life By You has had its release date pushed back again, this time indefinitely. That's what developers Paradox say. The simple reason is: "we believe that additional development time is needed."
I missed this when it released: Little Buddy Move is an interactive animation from Chuchel and Samorost team Amanita. You click on cute wooden gremlins to remix a funky track. You'll be done with it in about 45 seconds, but it is 45 seconds of pure joy:
TUESDAY, I PRESUME?
You can't fool me. This isn't my first Tuesday.'Warner Smash Bros' fighter MultiVersus has added Friday the 13th’s Jason and The Matrix’s Agent Smith to its already preposterous roster, as the fighter prepares to return next week having vanished after its open beta almost a year ago.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has added a boss rush mode, extra fast-travel and an outfit from the 2008 reboot (if you can unlock it) in the second of its three free updates.
Undertale follow-up Deltarune's next part(s) are “going better than ever”, but don’t expect them anytime soon, per the latest update from creator Toby Fox.
Stellar Blade devs Shift Up are ‘considering’ a PC release and sequel for the flashy action-RPG, as their next game Project Witches also takes aim at PC (it sounds like that'll be a gacha game though, sorry).
Galactic mystery puzzler Machinika: Museum is free on Steam until 27th May - ta, PCG.
You will soon be unable to play Steam games on your Telsa. Speaking as a pedestrian, I'm kind of happy about that.
I'm still away from my desk representing/disgracing RPS at the Digital Dragons conference in Krakow. Yesterday another journalist and I went looking for a networking event in the old town and I'm pretty sure we were being stalked by a horse-drawn carriage. I haven't seen the other journalist yet today. Perhaps the old town has claimed him.
DEFCON MONDAY
This morning the Maw has manifested as a million mini-Maws, who look like violently coloured preying mantids. They squat on my shoulders as I type these words, squealing and hissing. Shoo! Shoo! FEED THEM.