Overwatch 2 is going to let non-support players heal themselves, to reduce the frustration of bad teamwork

Overwatch 2 is going to receive some changes designed to make teamwork easier, and to make bad teamwork less frustrating. The latter is more interesting, because one of Blizzard’s proposed solution is giving Tank and Damage heroes “a modified, tuned-down version of the Support self-healing passive”, which would make them less reliant on Support players to heal everyone.

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Kumitantei: Old-School Slaughter looks like a promising indie successor to Danganronpa

It’s been almost seven years since Danganronpa V3 brought a close to the trilogy of gloriously twisted murder-mystery visual novels. With several of the series’ biggest names going on to release their next game as an exclusive for the Nintendo Switch, there’s room for a properly good successor on PC. Or why not successors? Last year’s exceptional Paranormasight is definitely in the running, and 2024 is already looking promising thanks to the reveal of Kumitantei: Old-School Slaughter.

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I wish I could cheat Reigns: Three Kingdoms like a Choose Your Own Adventure book

The two best parts of a Choose Your Own Adventure book are when you initially feel out the shape and paths at the start, and then when you grow tired of dead-ends and faff and just start cheating. The same seems true for Reigns: Three Kingdoms, the latest in the decision-making story series, which arrived on PC (and Switch) yesterday after a year exclusive to Netflix’s inexplicable library of mobile games. Once again, you will decide the fate of a kingdom (this time, China) by swiping left or right on binary decisions. Unfortunately, you cannot cheatily flick through to interesting parts nor use your finger as a bookmark. Not even if you jam it into a USB port. I did try.

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Kainga’s shortcomings can’t stop me from enjoying it

Kainga Colon Seeds of Civilization is one of many, many games that I didn’t get on with for some reason or other in early access, and has subsequently sat in my pile long past a 1.0 release, neglected and generating a vague guilt. It’s come some way since, but its edges are still a little rough, with (usually) minor bugs and limited feedback wrapped up in a design that’s influenced, of course, by that vague shimmering ghost of Rogue (and thus is innately bad and you’re all just wrong). So yeah, it kinda has problems.

But I like it. Weird, huh?

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Ask RPS: What will the next 150 years of PC gaming hold?

In addition to resolutions, new years are always good times to start thinking about the futureeeee, with or without a wibbly oooOOOoooOoooOh intonation. Predictions about what’s going to happen over the next 12 months abound, some of which are more spurious (and light-hearted) than others. But such near-sightedness is not what we’re concerning ourselves with today in this latest edition of Ask RPS. We’re looking much further ahead, thanks to this excellent question from MiniMatt.

They ask: “Dearest RPS, This being your 150th year in PC gaming [Ed: this question was submitted in 2023], please tell us what the next 150 years hold? Will VR become universal? Will the desktop PC box survive or will we all move over to laptops & steam decks? Will industry continue to consolidate or fragment? Get yer nostradamus on and tell us Peter Molyneux’s future.

Indeed, a lot has changed in the world of PC gaming since our esteemed founding in 1873, so come and find out our best guesses for what the future holds below.

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Action RPG Sand Land’s release date trailer is a montage of Dragon Ball-powered tank shenanigans

Bandai Namco have slapped a release date on Ilca Inc’s Sand Land, which isn’t a dodgy themepark created by an over-ambitious building supplies firm, but an action RPG adaptation of the same-named manga by Akira Toriyama, in which a titchy demon searches for the Legendary Spring and goes to war with a king who is hogging all the water.

It’s out 26th April 2024, and alternates beat ’em up action with cartoon tank customisation, in a sort of Dragon Ball X Mad Max homage with chunks of Dragon Quest thrown in for good measure.

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New Cycle’s overview trailer reveals another city-builder grappling with the problem of hope in a fading world

Core Engage and Daedalic Entertainment have released a new overview trailer for New Cycle, their post-apocalyptic “dieselpunk” city management game. “New Cycle” is obviously a bit of a self-contradiction, and I suspect that’s deliberate – one of the questions the video leaves you with is whether there is “a future beyond survival”, or whether we are doomed to just repeat the processes of extraction and gradual building-up, resource overexploitation and encroaching disaster suggested by these 12 jam-packed minutes of in-game footage.

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