Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Dragon Age: The Veilguard consultant and former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah has published a Youtube video addressing the question: “why do AAA games take so long?” It’s a tidy 25 minutes or so, and gets a fair way into the weeds of a variety of topics, from the current enthusiasm for live service “forever games” over ‘finite’, narrative-led affairs, to the “misleading” announcement of highly-demanded sequels years before they enter full production, in order to pump up a publisher’s brand during a dry spell.

One thing I wanted to fish out and drop on your plate is Darrah’s discussion of what he terms “the fidelity death cult” – that is, the desire for ever greater levels of lifelike visual detail and “intricacy”.

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We’re only a couple of days away from the early access launch of Dawntrail, Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion and first in over two years since the climactic Endwalker. As the summery story expansion prepares to drop, Square Enix have run down everything else arriving in the MMO’s 7.0 patch, which notably includes its long-awaited graphical overhaul along with several other nice-to-have improvements whether you’re playing Dawntrail or not.

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The thing everybody forgets about Sisyphus is that he was an absolutely awful bastard who deserved everything he got. Prior to being the guy who has to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity, Sisyphus was a crafty Ephyran tyrant who used to murder his guests for kicks, and who once fathered children with his own niece in a bid to depose his own brother. Charming! The Ancient Greek gods were outraged both by the king’s violation of the norms of hospitality, and by his general insistence on being too clever by half – and I feel a similar way reading the Xitter feed of Bashir “ManliestDev” Kashalo, who is making a game in which you play as Sisyphus after his eventual demotion to the rank of the underworld’s chief rock-pusher.

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The internet doesn’t exist in the world depicted by the film Aliens, though variations of it crop up in the expanded universe. Nor does the idea of a digital society. There’s networked communications tech, but it consists of signals between bodies in deepest space, light years apart, of lonely video terminals in cramped dockloader apartments, and of maniacally collaged CCTV feeds of Marines getting their asses kicked, man. There’s no ocean of online interactions, corroding the everyday from all directions, just 1-to-1s through boxy, retro-futurist screens that are so dingy and inadequate it feels like Ripley and Burke are peering at each other through a letterbox. Small wonder, given that Aliens was released in 1986, when what would become the internet was still mostly the province of universities and the military.

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Fallen Aces is a stylish FPS lead pipe ‘em up with immersive sim elements, published by good gun-knowers New Blood Interactive. Your gumshoe ‘tagonist wakes up, hungover of brain, skint of wallet, and unshaven of face, to discover your apartment – undoubtedly reeking of smokerettes and dehydration wee – is being broken into by foes goonly and mookish. They take a while to boot the door down, which gives you a moment to observe the place and consider which of Fallen Aces’ expansive makeshift weapon selection you’d like to batter them with. Decisions, decisions…

After eating some fridge fruit, I prepare an ambush by flicking off the lightswitch, then hide behind a desk. When they break in, I bravely sneak up behind them and put the frying pan I picked up to work. The sound effects tell me this a quality bit of cookware. Probably cast iron. Barely a dent. In the pan.

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Game development studio and intergalactic war ministry Arrowhead have launched a new series of written update posts for players of Helldivers 2 to help keep the war record straight. Mostly, this is the usual case of somebody on the team gathering quotes as the developers batter their fingertips against keyboards to bring you, the video gamer, fresh cannons and what-have-you. But there is some insight into what the conflict-pushers at Arrowhead have enjoyed most about player actions over the last month, including bringing an entire planet to the liberated state of post-existence.

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When I finished my review for Soulslike Lies Of P, the devs released a patch not long after that nerfed bosses and made things for ol’ Pinnochio easier overall. Sod’s Law struck that day… and it’s returned with a smirk. Shadow Of The Erdtree has just been patched, making its Shadow Realm Blessings stronger from the off, and in turn, things a little easier for everybody. Such is the life of a reviewer, eh.

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With a groan, it rises. The first Resident Evil is a piece of horror game history, and it has just come shambling back to PC after a long time putrefying. Ye olde games shoppe, GOG.com is selling the 1996 survival horror classic as a digital download, so you don’t have to go rummaging through eBay auctions to find an original physical copy anymore. It’s going for £9/$10. But the smile-raiser is the revelation that its sequels, Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, will also be getting reanimated in their original polygonal glory.

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The human body is a wonderfully complex organism, and it’s well worth trusting your instincts when it comes to feeling repulsed by certain things. We know that if the milk looks bad and smells bad, it is bad. Do not taste the forbidden yogurt, as much as it calls to you. How, then, to interpret my visceral repulsion to the most disgusting Shadow Of The Erdtree build yet seen? So gross, in fact, that YouTuber SYROBE has managed to beat the Elden Ring DLC’s infamously ridiculous final boss in a mere 13 seconds. Here’s the video. Massive spoilers, obviously.

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Forza Horizon 4 is my favourite racing game of all time, and a gloriously daft celebration of going fast set in a stunning, pastoral recreation of the UK. If you haven’t played it, you should buy it quick – because it’s being delisted from digital storefronts later this year, and its DLC disappears from sale today.

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