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Eight years after launching, Stardew Valley just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Update 1.6 arrived yesterday, with enough changes that the patch notes are 7308 words long. It bumps the farm-o-life sim’s co-op player limit to eight, adds hundreds of new items, opens up a new progression system for “powerful perks and items”, adds new events, lets you drink mayonnaise, and so much more that. Best of all, it lets you have more pets. New pets. Pets wearing hats.
Generative AI is all over the entertainment industries right now, and lots of people in games are making excited noises about finding new ways to integrate it into their products, from game developers and publishers such as Ubisoft and Square Enix to platform holders and hardware firms such as Epic and Nvidia. This new industry obsession is still taking shape, and there are lots of questions still to be answered about how much it might cost in the future, who will have access to it, and what it will actually help with, not to mention fears about job losses and other harms. But there’s a bigger question bubbling underneath all of this that threatens to burst the wobbly generative AI bubble: is the entire boom built on stolen labour?
Later this week, Payload Studios’ open world vehicular survival builder TerraTech Worlds launches into early access. As the name implies, it’s a bigger, bolder and more ambitious take on their still very popular sandbox game TerraTech, but according to Payload’s founder and CEO Russ Clarke, they’re viewing this new version as more of a successor to TerraTech than a full-bodied sequel. “The overall quality of experience is really a huge leap forward,” Clarke told me during a press presentation last week. “We’re not calling it a sequel because we felt that making it a sequel would be a bit too constraining.” Rather, it’s “more of a reimagining” of the original game, says Clarke, with a change in engine and fresh investment from Tencent allowing them to reach the full potential of their original vision.
Cyan Worlds today announced plans to launch their fancy real-time 3D remake of Riven later this year, coming with support for both VR cybergoggles and standard meatspace screens. Riven: The Sequel To Myst was the 1997 sequel to Myst, the 1993 pre-rendered adventure game which sold a million CD-ROM drives and launched a thousand specks of spittle from John Walker’s mouth. The remake previously had a longwinded name of its own, Riven: New Discoveries Of The Lost D’ni Empire, but now is simply named Riven. They should rebrand again and call it Riven: The Sequel To The Myst Remake.
If you’re keen to try out Sand Land, an upcoming action RPG from the developers of One Piece Odyssey and the creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama, then I have some great news. There’s a demo out right now that lets you explore a portion of the sandy map, try out a handful of the characters, and ride some rusty vehicles ahead of its release next month on April 25th.
Valve have launched Steam Families on the Steam Beta Client, a suite of new and refreshed family sharing options that replace Steam’s existing Family Sharing and Family View features. The idea is that you’ll now have a single location where you can manage your family’s games from, as well as have more control over what and when other family members can play.
A heaving expo floor is not a great place to sample a first-person open world hunting game that wants you to monitor your own heartbeat, but The Axis Unseen manages to be pretty atmospheric regardless. It helps that I’m hunting Bigfoot. Hefting my magical bow, I peer around a tree trunk at the creature as he wanders down a slope of vivid orange grass sprinkled with pale blue rock. I only have a couple of arrows in my quiver, which doesn’t feel like nearly enough, so I edge across the hillside to another tree trunk, where I can hopefully line up a headshot.
If you’ve ever tried to play a hardcore RPG that’s way above your brain’s pay grade, or got lost in tutorials that use complicated words and bizarre jargon, then you’ve probably felt right at home reading headlines about AI recently. Why are people angry that this character has seven fingers? Why does Nvidia want me to talk to a robot about ramen? Why is everyone saying AI is smart when it still can’t manage its Classical Era luxury resource economy in Civilization properly? In this new series, we’re going to explore what ‘generative AI’ is, why it’s arrived now in the games industry, and what it might mean for people who make, write about and play games in the future.
HoYoverse have announced that sign-ups for Zenless Zone Zero‘s next closed beta test are now available. While the start and end dates of the next closed beta haven’t been unveiled just yet, we do know that there’s going to be a new character to play, a new faction, new missions, and overhauls to the game’s combat and exploration. I’d imagine it’s worth a look if you’re into Genshin Impact, or are into your anime fights. Either one will suffice.
Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter’s #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by a meaty walking truck, opportunities for hubris, slime cleanup troubles, submarine dilemmas, and more. Check out these attractive and interesting indie games!
