Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Among the trio of new hardware devices Valve just announced for 2026 – which also include the Steam Frame VR headset and a redesigned Steam Controller – the new Steam Machine is probably the most surprising. Mainly because the original Steam Machines, a series of partner-built SteamOS mini-PCs, sank like rectangular stones upon launching in 2015.

Designed and built entirely in-house, the new model is a very different proposition, though it’s not so much the updated hardware that has Valve believing it’s time to give the Steam Machine another chance. According to engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais, the biggest problem faced by those doomed Machines was one that the Steam Deck’s Proton software has solved: a lack of SteamOS-compatible games.

Read more

Silent Hill f‘s got a fresh patch and it generally focuses on making the schoolgirl spookfest easier for those who want that option, or just aren’t too fussed about fights. There’s a new “casual” difficulty option and the chance to a certain sections during a new game plus run, plus some wider tweaks that should make the game less combat-intensive.

Read more

Wall World 2 isn’t as easy to explain as its predecessor. Yes, it is still a roguelike in which you split your time between piloting a robotic spider up and down a giant wall in search of weak spots from which you can mine deep into the cliff face, digging up minerals to spend upgrading your mecha-arachnid’s weapons, enhancing its ability to fight off periodic waves of pustule-covered aliens, until you either kill the biggest pustule-covered alien or die in the attempt. But now it’s become a much more complex game, embellishing both its mining and combat halves and thinning the divide between them.

This is going to take a little explaining, with a lot of changes falling into the plus and minus columns, so here’s an easy improvement to tide you over. You can now name your robospider; mine is called Nigel.

Read more

Start setting up tripwires and stretch your bow strings, a Horizon MMORPG dubbed Horizon Steel Frontiers has been fully revealed by Sony and developers NCSoft. As ever, it’s all about slapping up and taming big metal bears, birds and the like, this time as a custom character in a world filled with other players who’re also in the robo-hunting business.

Read more

Undoubtedly the only thing anyone in the PC world will be talking about for the next week is Valve’s trio of hardware announcements, the Steam Machine, the Steam Frame, and their new Steam Controller. But don’t forget about the old Steam Deck just yet! While Valve didn’t announce anything handheld related today, they have commented on where they’re at when it comes to anything like a Steam Deck 2.

Read more

How about that Steam Machine, ‘ey? Consoles are now computers and computers are now consoles. What a topsy turvy world we’re living in! I’m sure you have lots of questions, a lot of which I hope can be answered by James’ hands-on look at the thing, but you may still be wondering how you’ll know what games will actually work on it. The Steam Deck has its fancy verified badge that certifies that a game runs on the handheld, and it turns out that same badge is one that’ll come in handy for the Steam Machine.

Read more

Oh I do love a win! Today’s is quite a surprising one, coming in the form of Jagex willingly removing some microtransactions from RuneScape after more than 120,000 people voted in favour of having them permanently removed from the game. To be frank, I am genuinely unsure if I have… well, ever seen a company do this simply because everyone hated them so much.

Read more

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is, in Dominic’s own words, “merely okay.” I haven’t played it myself, so I can’t comment there, the general consensus seems to be in agreement on that point however. The Chinese Room are working on turning that around at least! Today they released a new patch for the RPG, containing a bunch of fixes, and offered up a small roadmap of improvements and DLC to come.

Read more

With as young a medium as games is (and it is young, as old as we all might feel), it’s no surprise that it would burgeon new genres, and that said genres would be called into question. Metroidvanias! That’s a potentially silly one, with a common argument being that it tells you nothing about the genre itself. I prefer Japan’s search action as a name myself, though I am but one humble games journalist. A genre I hadn’t called into question until today, however, is extraction shooter, a name that a former Bungie lead apparently disliked so much he tried to get the studio’s marketing team to make something else up for Marathon.

Read more

Back in my university days, a few friends and I played Yulgang Online, also known as Scions of Fate. An early 2000s Korean MMORPG with a Chinese martial arts theme, Yulgang was one of dozens of free MMOs we dabbled in. While we never got beyond the “kill X number of things to level up” grind, it was novel to run around in a wuxia-themed world, which was a rarity in localised-into-English PC gaming back then.

Read more