Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Genre tags are slippery, fickle things at the best of times, but I feel like each one I use to label Dunebound Tactics almost diminishes it, as I’m sacrificing something precious for the sake of powering on through the arid sands of easily comestible, digestible, poop-estible online content. Ah well, circle of life and all that. Plus, at least it’s thematic: you’ll have to make sacrifices yourself if you want to progress across its unforgiving deserts. This one’s got shades of roguelite, RPG, strategy, and turn-based tactics. Nothing too uncommon, but it’s the shades of Red Faction, Frostpunk, and Sunless Sea that have me interested.

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Alan Wake developers Remedy have announced their very first multiplayer game, a three-person co-op shooter set in the world of Control and thereby, the Remedy Connected Universe. Previously codenamed Condor, it’s called FBC: Firebreak – and I am going to immediately recommend they shorten it to Firebreak, because that caps-into-colon combo is going to wind me up when I’m writing news posts at speed. While I’m throwing my weight around, let me also instantly rebut the pedants who are even now racing to leave a comment saying that, actually, Remedy did work on Smilegate’s multiplayer shooter CrossfireX. Yes, they did, but only the single player bits.

Anyway, Firebreak! Here’s the announcement trailer.

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Developers Unknown Worlds and publishers Krafton have given us our first proper look at their next open world exploration sim, Subnautica 2, which will launch on PC via Xbox Game Preview in 2025. It’ll support four player co-op, alongside the returning singleplayer survive-o-buildy experience, and it’ll take place on a brand new planet. Here’s the reveal trailer.

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Bohemia Interactive have announced that Arma 4, the next big instalment in their shooter simulation series, will release in 2027. The announcement came at the tail-end of Bohemia’s 25th Anniversary Concert, alongside some disturbingly gun-less footage of a coastal promontory with rippling ocean waters against a cloudy sky – it reminds me more of The Elder Scrolls 6’s announcement teaser than any tactical mili-banger. Perhaps they’re secretly making an open world walking simulator? I kid, I kid. Please put the chair down.

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Ever been in a position where two people are really going at each other, hurling pointed jabs and insults back and forth, and you’re stuck in the middle? Well then, perhaps you’ll empathise with the enemies in Archons, a twin-stick Vampire Survivors-like where you control two characters at once, and attacks bounce between them automatically as they move about the arena. I gave the Steam Next Fest demo a quick whirl today, and after a couple of swift attempts (I died horribly fast), I realised this could become a bit of a danger to my free time, so I’ve put it away for now.

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Praise the gods, it’s Hades 2 update day, and developers Supergiant are not mucking about. They have bolstered the nippy roguelike with a heap of shiny new things in this “Olympian Update”, including a new weapon with homing attacks, a liver-pecking boss fight, two new animal familiars, and the home region of the Gods – mount Olympus. It’s probably the biggest update they’ve made yet in terms of fresh sights. And by “fresh sights”, I mean Dionysus sporting a leopard-print thong. Yikes.

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In a recent chat with the Ian Games Network, IO Interactive boss Hakan Abrak said the Hitman developer “absolutely feel(s) like 20 plus years of training for the agent fantasy, creating an agent that travels the world and globetrotting whatnot, has given us some know-how” on bringing James Bond to the greasy screen (“greasy screen” is my new attempt at coining a “the big/small screen” but for games. I foresee big success.)

Abrak is so confident, in fact, that he reckons their Bond project might end up mirroring the World Of Assassination’s trilogy format. “But what’s exciting about that project is that we actually got to do an original story,” Abrak says. “So it’s not a gamification of a movie. It’s completely beginning and becoming a story, hopefully for a big trilogy out there in the future.”

It’s a fine interview, worth a read. But I must ask: how are the queues, Abrak? How am I supposed to get excited about a new IO game if you don’t mention the queues?

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I punched a cultist in the face in Streets Of Rogue 2, just because. He started running away – something I would not allow. When another robed cultist spotted what was happening, he tried to intervene, and a kind of Benny Hill pursuit chain began. We ran across a beach, through public toilets, and into the surf. In the end I had to knock them both out. As they lay unconscious, I worried they might soon wake and tell someone what I had done. This can’t happen, I hate accountability. I punched their unawake bodies toward the sea in an effort to float the evidence away. But after a few punches the first man exploded into chunks of flesh. I am a murderer now. I was supposed to be a chef.

Streets Of Rogue 2 has a demo out for Steam Next Fest, and while a lot of features are locked up behind the word “UNAVAILABLE” in red font, there’s still quite a lot of mischief for you to get up to.

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Archetype Entertainment and Blur Studio’s space RPG Exodus was announced back in December, and was broadly notable for a couple of things: 1) Matthew McConaughey plays a character, and 2) the game’s story is woven around time dilation during faster than light travel, with star-hopping adventurers prosecuting a fight against evil Celestials over hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.

Now, it is notable for three things, the third thing being a cosmic blubber-spire of gurning faces who want to eat your ship and soul. Say hello to the Mara Yama, the ickiest Celestial faction so far. Here’s a trailer, in which McConaughey does that thing where he lingers on the sibilants and makes you want to lean in and vigorously mess up his hair.

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The existence of Knights In Tight Spaces, sequel to Fights In Tight Spaces, implies the existence of an unknown quantity or perhaps, an infinity of follow-up games that rhyme with both of those. Frights In Tight Spaces is the obvious horror spin-off. Sleights In Tight Spaces would be an urban pick-pocketing sim. Fights In Trite Spaces is about arguing with people on social media. Ah, you could spend a whole article, indeed, a series of articles, just fleshing out the iterations. Fortunately, Knights In Tight Spaces has a new demo to distract me.

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