Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Back in 2022, when Project Rene was first announced, everyone quite fairly assumed that it would go on to become The Sims 5, given that The Sims 4 was quite old by that point. Then, last year, EA actually said no, they’re not making a Sims 5, they’re just going to keep making things for The Sims 4, and Project Rene will be more of a multiplayer game. While bits and pieces of the game have been shared here and there, some gameplay of Project Rene now appears to have been shared online, which looks like it very much wasn’t meant to be seen by many eyes.

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I find city builders to be quite a stressful genre, mostly because I get freaked out as soon as my virtual bank account starts dipping into the red. Every now and then, though, one comes along that looks like it might actually be a calming time, and Synergy looks like it could fill that gap. It’s been out in early access for almost a year now, but developer Leikir Studio announced today that Synergy will be leaving early access and entering 1.0 in just two weeks time on April 16th.

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For the most part, anything to do with the Nintendo Switch 2 won’t have much to do with anyone in this neck of the woods, but its inaugural Direct did have some goodies for us PC players too. Like, for example, the fact that Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4 now have a release date, June 5th (which also happens to be when the Switch 2 comes out but that’s neither here nor there). Mind, this is almost a good seven years after the first chapter dropped, and almost four since Chapter 2 was released, so it’s been a long time coming.

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Elden Ring is getting a Tarnished Edition on Switch 2, but you are an enlightened individual who cares not for Switchery – why else would you be reading RPS, a website dedicated to PCs, the very best console of all? Are you some kind of Nintendo fan-enthusiast-zealot, here to gloat about the fact that the Tarnished Edition is a Switch 2 exclusive?

Is that what you think? Well if that is what you think, I’ve got something to tell you. Something that may shock and discredit you. And that thing is as follows: I’m not wearing a tie at all! I mean, the Tarnished Edition’s new stuff is almost guaranteed to turf up on PC at some stage.

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In Pathologic 2 you played an exhausted surgeon who between incisions would scramble through piles of rubbish for a handful of nuts to keep himself alive. In Pathologic 3 the developers want you to approach the same plague-stricken town from a different perspective. This time you’re a well-fed and well-dressed city doctor whose pompous attitude and diagnosing minigame makes him more like Hugh Laurie’s Dr House than the scroungey hero of a survival game. Pathologic 3 Quarantine is a demo on Steam that lets you try out this secondary hero, the Bachelor, and it sets the tone for another trip into Ice-Pick Lodge’s janky-if-interesting townscape.

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A video game union representing around 300 workers at Elder Scrolls, Doom and Fallout publisher ZeniMax Media have overwhelmingly voted for strike action if they’re unable to thrash out a deal over wages and workplace conditions with Microsoft, ZeniMax’s parent company. The unionised workers and Microsoft have been haggling over things like remote work options and outsourcing game testing for nearly two years; now, they say they’re prepared to down tools if their concerns aren’t addressed.

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The makers of cardy roguelike Monster Train 2 announced a release date yesterday, revealing that it’ll be pulling into Steam libraries and honking its big “all aboard” horn in less than two months. Do you have the capacity to allow another deckbuilder into the overcrowded dining car of your brain? I probably don’t. But I do have fond memories of the first game’s crunchy runs and over-the-top card combos. Hmmm, maybe another rail trip or two hundred would be nice.

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There are few things more heartwarming than a solo developer seeing breakout success, especially if their game is a wholesome testament to community spirit, entrepreneurship, and innovative street cleaning solutions like Schedule I. Pretty close, though, is a solo developer pulling a ‘Miyazaki lying about Elden Ring‘, and underselling just how big their game actually is in the run-up to release.

Developer Tyler has been updating the bud flinging simulator steadily throughout the demo release and into the current early access, and they’ve also got a roadmap over at Trello here (featuring: raids, parkour, jukeboxes, and controller support among other things). Some of the most relevant communication is actually in the Steam forums though. Tyler revealed yesterday that he’s currently working on getting the game Steam Deck verified. It’s also where he first revealed the full list of planned sellables that are now in the roadmap (Marijuana, Meth, Cocaine, Shrooms, MDMA, and delicious + cool Heroin), with plans to take community suggestions once they’re all in.

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Earlier this month, Snail Games put out a widely and justifiably clowned-on genAI trailer for Ark: Survival Evolved‘s Aquatica DLC. Much reporting on the incident, including my own, used some variation of “slop” in the headline.

This has likely been true for some time, but it made me notice that ‘slop’ had evolved from a common adjective into the realm of de facto terminology. If you dislike GenAI, you refer to its output as ‘slop’. It’s become lexi-canonical.

I think we can do better. “Slop” evokes a tepid cylinder of condensed cream of mushroom soup, glumly wibbling in a chipped bowl. When I think of GenAI, I picture something closer to tropical insects laying eggs beneath soft flesh of victims. There’s something parasitical and sinister about flaying the skin of artists who’ve explicitly spoken out against GenAI and then gleefully parading around in that stolen flesh. Slop sounds like Soft sounds like Plop sounds like Globule. It slides down too easy; gets off too lightly.

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