Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I find myself increasingly turned off these days by simulations that boast of endless butterfly effects. I guess my misgivings can be boiled down to “a chain of dominoes is still a chain of dominoes even if it’s 1000 metres in extent”. Without some reason to care supplied by a narrative or broader question of theming and aesthetics, it all risks being admirable of execution but also like sheer technical maximalism – systems for the sake of systems. What do I care if I can make the 567th domino fall over by kicking the first?

Still, I’m very interested to see more of City 20. In development since 2018, it’s the work of Untold Games, a studio hitherto known for VR projects, location-based “immersive experiences” and ports of games such as Journey To The Savage Planet. As a piece of mechanics, it’s a top-down sandbox survival experience with a highly reactive environment and procedural storytelling, influenced by the likes of Rimworld (and not, the developers insist, created using latter-day generative AI tools). As a story scenario, meanwhile, it’s inspired by Cold War conspiracy theories about Soviet “secret cities” given over to uranium enrichment and nuclear experiments. The titular City 20 is one such burg, though not a direct recreation. As the game begins, a nuclear accident has led to a radiation spike and a partial evacuation: you play one of the poor suckers who didn’t make the last bus out of town.

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Good news for people who don’t cringe violently every time they encounter the phrase “Narrative Legos”! We’ve finally got some more details about the extremely Bioshock-adjacent Judas, courtesy of the Ian Games Network, who spent six hours playing the game and chatting to Levine at Ghost Story Games in Boston. It’s a massive interview, but very broadly, it’s an FPS game that gives you guns in your right hand and “various organic powers” in your left. It’s got a big focus on story and choosing your own path through character interaction, and it also has roguelike elements. “The ship is different every time you die and come back, the ship layout can be different,” says Levine.

Judas, it terms out, is the name of the woman you’ve likely already seen in the trailers, who is also your player character. The game takes place aboard the Mayflower, a spaceship the size of a city doing that thing from Hitchhiker’s Guide with the hairdressers, only the Earth seems to have been in actual danger this time. You start the game being resurrected, or “reprinted”. You’ll then start chatting to holographic projections of the three leaders of the ship; all of which have different goals, roles, and Bioshock-ian quirks. They’re at odds with each other, and you’ll get to decide who to work with and against, hence “Narrative Legos” and “No two playthroughs ever…” yadayada, which is a phrase that seems almost quaint in terms of comparative obnoxiousness.

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If you’ve read my duology on spending far too long queuing in Hitman, you’ll know I’ve a predilection for the virtual people watching of NPCs in games that have some sort of schedule system. “It’s a wholesome pursuit of game design knowledge!” I stammer, as the guards approach. “It gives me a greater appreciation for the obscure details lurking in the hidden corners of virtual cities!” I protest, as I’m clapped in chains after being caught staring through a blacksmiths window for four hours watching him eat the same heel of bread, rubbing my hands together and grinning manically. Imagine my glee, then, when an early quest in action RPG Dragon’s Dogma 2 not only condoned my weird hobby, but actively encouraged it.

Alfred is bardic beggar you’ll likely first encounter by Vernworth’s city square water feature. He’s doing a spot of medieval busking, spinning some brilliantly localized rhyming yarns to whoever will listen. He also periodically asks for beer money, even if you think he’s shit, which is a great pitch. Onlookers come and go, but after listening to him gas up the nobility with tall tales for a spell, you’ll likely spot a particularly enthusiastic permanent fixture off to the side. Have a chat, and he’ll tell you he reckons there’s something fishy about Alfred. He never sees much patronage from busking, but he never seems short of coin. Follow him around for a bit and see how he makes his money, won’t you? My annoyance that I’d just given Alfred several hundred gold immediately dissipated at the prospect of some quest journal-sanctioned stalking.

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Swashbuckling third-person action-RPG Flintlock: The Siege Of Dawn is, amongst other things, a gentle homage to New Zealand, developer A44 Games’s country of origin. You do have to look for it, mind you. The game’s art direction at large is an elegant hodgepodge of inspirations that deserves to be unpicked carefully after release.

Main character Nor Vanek – who is on a mission to massacre various escaped underworld gods – is kind of a Napoleonic superhero. Rakishly attired in braided frock coats and knee-high boots, she can use sparking “blackpowder” pistols both to inflict damage and to double-jump or dodge while performing snappily choreographed, one-handed sword and axe combos, straight out of God of War. As regards locations, there are pale medieval citadels with stained-glass windows, coffee shops run by eerie, many-armed “Hosts” that glean from the ambience of Turkish bazaars, and certain other fantastical areas and characters – including Nor’s spectral fox sidekick Enki – that are influenced by ancient Mesopotamian mythology.

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Maintaining the thrum of a finely-tuned citybuilder has to be one of the most satisfying acts of video game plate-spinning around. Nursing that constant flow of foot traffic, produce and profits, all of them teetering on a carefully honed knife-edge, that’s the good stuff right there. Of course, it’s not always the threat of imminent and total collapse that fuels these mighty engines of urban planning. Sometimes it’s the simple pleasure of building itself, watching a scrub of dirt track rise up into an advanced superhighway of architectural wonder. The best of these more relaxed kinds of citybuilders – your Dorfromantiks and your SteamWorld Builds et al – still involve plenty of plate-spinning; it’s just that they won’t ever fall over if you take your eye off the ball for a moment.

Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles sits at the citybuilding crossroads of ‘relaxed’ and ‘something more’. It wants to be an easy-going kind of builder, as nothing fundamentally bad happens when the wheels stop turning for a moment. For the most part, you’re free to build where and however you please, constructing imposing fortresses jutting out into the ocean from mere scraps of rock. But it also gets more bogged down in the minutiae of resource flow, worker management and conquest and expansion via muddy, ill-defined combat procedures than it probably should. It always feels on the precipice of becoming something bigger, bolder and more boisterous than it ever really achieves, dipping its toes into the murky waters of its lonely Ursee without truly ever getting its feet wet.

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Journey developer thatgamecompany have announced the PC early access release date for their social MMO Sky: Children Of The Light. Having already built up a substantial community on both mobile and consoles, PC players will now be able to join in on April 10th on Steam. There will be some special PC-themed goodies available to celebrate the occasion, too, including a Companion Cube prop from Portal, a Journey cosmetic pack, and double rewards for sending Heart gifts to other players.

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Palia, a cute-looking life sim MMO inspired by e.g. Stardew Valley, has been in beta since last year, but now it’s officially out on Steam, where many more people can download and play it. With this launch comes a pretty substantial update – Patch 0.178, full notes here – which adds a new questline and Temple to explore, new furniture, and a bunch of new spring flowers and trees to grow in your garden. There is also a giant plushi frog, listed under ‘Adjustments’. The patch notes say simply “What does he want? Does he come in peace?” which makes him sound way more sinister than I think he is, but as you can see from the screenshot, he isn’t not sinister.

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Remember when Ark: Survival Evolved was announced to be getting an animated series with a star-studded cast including the likes of Michelle Yeoh, Russell Crowe, Elliot Page, David Tennant and Malcolm-bloody-McDowell? I sure didn’t! That was over three years ago during the heights of a worldwide pandemic, though, so I think we can forgive ourselves a little. Anyway, Ark: The Animated Series has now arrived out of the blue, dropping its first six episodes on streaming service Paramount+.

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Generative AI is one of the biggest debates raging across not just video games, but art and culture as a whole at the moment. Into that debate has waded the CEO of graphics card giants Nvidia to drop a prediction that can only be described as searingly flammable: we’ll see games where everything seen on-screen is fully generated by AI, in real-time, within the next 10 years.

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Everyone likes Dragon’s Dogma 2, it seems. Except everyone also seems to dislike one specific part of Dragon’s Dogma 2: the fantasy sequel’s microtransactions. But that one dull spot has already been polished out by modders, who are offering more convenient (and less expensive) ways to pick up items that you’ll either need to potentially grind or cough up real money for.

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