Company of Heroes and Dawn of War devs Relic suffer layoffs one week after reclaiming independence from Sega

Relic Entertainment, the freshly-independent developers of Company of Heroes, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Age of Empires IV, have confirmed a number of job losses. The layoffs come just a week after the studio announced their sale from former owners Sega, returning them to independence after two decades.

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New Arc Line is a party-based steampunk RPG with notes of Bioshock and Dishonored

Fulqrum Publishing have just released a story trailer for New Arc Line, a new steampunk fantasy RPG in which dragons rub shoulders with zeppelins, and dwarves are as abundant as air pollution. I hadn’t heard of it before and am quite interested, partly because the game sports some wonderfully mangled and colourful dystopian maps, and partly because it’s a story of immigrants trying to find their way to an inevitably deceptive “shining city of progress”, rather than the typical Chosen One fare.

Your family specifically are afflicted by a fatal disease. Your initial and perhaps overall goal in New Arc Line is to find a cure, of course, but who knows, along the way you might have to “get your hands dirty”, “rise from the bottom” and become some sort of absolute bastard. Take us away, trailer!

“Craft technopunk gear or master the arcane arts, fight, steal or smooth-talk your way to the top and become the hero or villain you want to be,” reads the Steam page. “You will not have to face the trials of this world alone, however; find your companions and gather your party, make foes and allies, fall in love, get involved in a massive conspiracy, and change the course of history forever.”

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The best Steam Deck docks

For a handheld PC, the Steam Deck benefits an awful lot from having a mouse and keyboard plugged into it, and nothing enables this marriage of portable and peripheral like one of the best Steam Deck docks. And it’s not just USB connectivity that gets a boost – external displays, rock-solid Ethernet connections for game downloads, and power delivery all make dock usage a preferable alternative to simply hooking up Bluetooth accessories. Along with a microSD card (and possibly a better case), these stand/hub combos are definitely among the tools that any regular Steam Deck wielder should have.

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My obsession with a singular board game makes me fear the unchill passage of time

As a valued RPS supporter, you’re likely aware that you possess legal ownership of the fleeting thoughts I have right before falling asleep at night. It’s actually in the T&C, right under the bit about Horace’s claim on your organs. Good news: such interruptions are plentiful, and so too will be content. Here’s my latest:

Am I doomed, I asked myself, to live in wishful longing for the myriad gaming experiences I could have had if I didn’t tend to get obsessed with a few specific games, both digital and tabletop, that take up all my leisure time?

Obviously I didn’t phrase it like that. It was more like ‘whawhaohhnoo’.

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WOW Classic’s Season Of Discovery doesn’t player test new content, leading to more bugs – but more fun

As World Of Warcraft Classic – an MMORPG that is, confusingly, a new version of the old version of World Of Warcraft – enters phase 3 of its Season Of Discovery, PCGamer has an interview with some of the devs where they talk about the decision to not run Player Test Realms – servers where they roll out the new content to smaller numbers of players to road test it. This means that when they launch new stuff for Seasons Of Discovery it’ll probably break more often, but it means players get to discover brand new things together. Which is great! And the developers think it’s good too.

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Total War: Warhammer 3’s upcoming Thrones of Decay expansion gets huge pricing change

Thrones of Decay, the upcoming expansion for strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3, will now be available to purchase as either three separate faction packs, or as a bundle at a discount. So, if you don’t fancy shelling out the full £19.10 for all three factions, you can grab new bits for either Nurgle, the Empire, or the Dwarfs for £7.49. If you do buy just one to start off with – say, to get a feel for the quality of Thrones of Decay as a package – you’ll get a 15% discount on the remaining two packs in the future.

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Goblin Stone is an XCOM-like with card combat, colony building and goblin breeding

Goblin Stone released almost a month ago, but we haven’t written about it yet, and it feels like you should know about it. It’s a turn-based RPG, it’s a roguelike with permadeath, it’s got XCOM-style base-building, its got card-based combat; it is extremely your sort of thing, if you’re the exact statistical average of Rock Paper Shotgun readers.

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