Final Factory’s blend of space station building and exploration will launch in April

Final Factory has already impressed via a couple of demos. It’s effectively ‘Factorio in space’: you construct space bases by chaining together machinery, protect by commanding ships and turrets to fight off alien invaders, then explore the galaxy to secure more resources.

It’s now got an Early Access release date: April 9th.

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Helldivers 2 Cutting Edge warbond is out, sparking fresh debate about the Illuminate faction

Helldivers 2‘s Cutting Edge Premium warbond, aka DLC battle pass, is now available to buy in-game, and it is chock-full of oddball gadgetry such as lightning shotguns, burst-fire laser rifles and experimental armour. As with the Arc Thrower stratagem, the lightning shotgun fires arcs of electricity that conduct between players and enemies alike, but there’s a fresh armour perk, Electrical Conduit, which reduces arc damage by 95%, allowing close-knit teams of Helldivers to roll around the battlefield frazzling themselves without much penalty.

Still, I think the real star pick here is surely the Localization Confusion booster, which extends the time between enemy spawns, allowing weirdo solo players such as myself to disentangle from a dragged-out gunfight a little more gracefully.

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The Electronic Wireless Show podcast S3 episode 10: making fun of that Ready Player One metaverse game

You wouldn’t know because she hardly ever mentions it, but Alice Bee is not a Ready Player One fan. In fairness, the newly revealed Open (or Opthreen), a RPO-themed metaverse battle royale thing, does look, sound, feel, and smell horrible, so a solid chunk of this week’s Electronic Wireless Show podcast is just us despairing over it. But there’s also some honest-to-goodness games chat, as we field a question from EWS listener Pete (thanks Pete!) on the games our younger selves were parentally forbidden from playing – and how we feel about them as ostensible grownups.

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Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic remake release left in limbo by Saber Interactive sale

This week’s announcement that Embracer are selling off Saber Interactive to new company Beacon Interactive has cast further doubt over the future of one of Embracer’s bigger projects, the much-delayed Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic remake. While Embracer have yet to actually state this out loud, it sounds like the KOTOR remake will be a “joint project” between Saber and Embracer. It also probably won’t be out in the next 12 months. Given the project’s repeated disruptions and delays, I suspect many of us will settle for the game coming out at all.

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Tangle Tower devs’ love letter to Resident Evil hits Steam in May

Crow Country and its spooky, mutant-stuffed theme park will be opening its gates on Steam on May 9th, developers SFB Games have announced. It’s the first of two games from the Tangle Tower micro-studio coming to PC this year, the other one being The Mermaid’s Tongue, which will be picking up the adventures of their Tangle Tower detective duo on a marginally less spooky-looking submarine later this year. Crow Country, however, is a very different kettle of fish, combining chunky, PS1-style Final Fantasy 7 character models with early Resident Evil tank controls and panicked monster shooting.

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Saber Interactive splits from Embracer, taking 3D Realms, Slipgate, Metro devs and more with them

Saber Interactive have parted ways with Embracer Group, buying back the rights to both themselves and numerous other studios in a deal initially valued at $247 million. The deal includes 38 ongoing game development projects plus the rights to 3D Realms, Slipgate Ironworks, New World Interactive, Nimble Giant, Mad Head, Digic, Fractured Byte and PR agency Sandbox Strategies, as well as Metro developers 4A Games and Pinball FX maker Zen Studios via options.

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The Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria’s next major update adds a sandbox mode and single player pause

While we felt it wasn’t an amazing game, we quite liked The Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria’s dwarven survival antics. It was a bit of cosy fun for a group of pals, and thankfully, open-ended co-op play looks to be the focus of the next big update, which adds a new sandbox mode that lets you pick rocks and sink pints free of storyline constraints. Not to mention new armour, weapons, and quality of life improvements like the ability to pause your single player sessions.

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What’s better: Highlighted interactive objects or retrievable reusable ammo?

Last time, you decided that a little hand for a cursor is better than left-handed FPS options. I dearly hope that when you clicked on your vote, your Windows cursor was a little gauntlet or skeletal hand or such. Onwards! This week, I ask you about grabbing (and poking, pulling, burning, pressing, activating, and otherwise using) stuff. What’s better, highlighted interactive objects or retrievable reusable ammo?

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