Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

When Ori And The Blind Forest developers Moon Studios announced that their next game would be a top-down, online action RPG, my initial reaction was, ‘Heck yes, sign me the hell up for this Souls-y, Diablo-y hack and slash.’ Having now played the opening 90 minutes of the game ahead of tonight’s Wicked Inside showcase, that initial excitement has settled into more of a ‘Hoo boy, this thing is hard as nails. Folks who like Elden Ring and Dark Souls are going to go absolutely bananas for it.’ It’s definitely verging on the edge of being just a teensy bit too punishing for my personal taste, but even though my arse got thoroughly whomped time and time again during this initial prologue section, there’s still something about No Rest For The Wicked that’s left me quietly captivated.

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It’s a tale as old as time: when a great, popular game rises to the top of the Steam charts, scammers and chancers will do everything in their power to steal some of that glory for themselves. The latest victim is Helldivers 2, with scammers putting up two separate fake pages for it on Steam over the last 24 hours. Each page listed Arrowhead as the developer, and PlayStation as the publisher, along with big discounts of 50-75% off to tempt players into buying the cheap version instead of the real one.

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Hope everyone enjoyed the RPS Game Club returning with Cobalt Core, though personally, I’ve always found deckbuilders a bit short on the screaming slaughter of unclean heretics. Put down the cards and pick up a boltgun, then, as this month’s Game Club pledges eternal service (until April) to Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.

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Your most commonly visible bones are your teeth, so what better way to worship at the fleshy altar of Doom than by polishing those bones with an electric toothbrush whose little LCD screen is running Id Software’s seminal satanic shooter? The latest delightfully weird device rising to the eternal question “Can it run Doom?” is a WiFi-enabled ‘smart toothbrush’, which is juuust powerful enough to run a version of Doom. You can even control it with your mouse. Here, check this out.

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There are moments where Sons Of The Forest matches the sublime paranoia of Subnautica. There’s that same lurching, exquisite tension as you delve deeper and deeper into darkness where you are not welcome, supplies dwindling, footfall echoing, monstrosities skittering about in the black. On my most intense plunge into one cave, I groaned aloud as the path I was praying must be the exit twisted back on itself, sending me first down a rope, and then into a long slide down, down into the earth, back into the spindly clutches of pale, bifurcated mutants. When I finally saw the sun again, I could have cried.

It’s still a bit wonky, but the full 1.0 release makes the Forest a fuller, livelier and more inviting (or else alluringly off-putting) prospect for a wander – even, as in my case, a wholly solo one. Consider this your cue to peel open some skin pouches.

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As the video games industry violently contracts to ensure shareholder satisfaction at the cost of making thousands upon thousands of people unemployed, Skylanders studio Toys For Bob have announced they’re splitting from Activision Blizzard and Microsoft to go independent. Good for them, but maybe too late for some. Earlier this month, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that it seemed Activision Blizzard were closing Toys For Bob’s California headquarters and laying off 86 people. Still, the new independent Toys For Bob say they’re working on something new and “exploring a possible partnership” with Microsoft.

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It feels pretty appropriate that my last deal post for RPS is for my favourite PC peripheral: the humble mechanical keyboard. This mechanical keyboard is more humble than its peers too, with a $30 asking price that is absolutely exceptional for a name-brand keyboard that gets rave reviews: the Keychron C3 Pro.

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If Helldivers 2 hasn’t quite scratched your itch for reducing robots into piles of scrap, upcoming physics-based brawler Mecha Mayhem might. Gang Beasts in a world of Gundam-like bots, the fighting game lets you literally tear your enemies into pieces before repurposing their dismembered parts on your own bot.

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Smite 2 was revealed as a standalone sequel to the third-person god-battling MOBA last month, using Unreal Engine 5 for a visual overhaul on the front end while making a number of significant gameplay and balance changes behind the scenes. Ahead of its planned alpha test this spring, developers Titan Forge have now shown off how the game’s Conquest mode will be evolving.

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Immortals of Aveum saw a very rough debut last summer, with the first-person magic-shooter from new studio Ascendant and EA reportedly suffering poor sales and mixed reviews – resulting in almost half of its developers being laid off mere weeks after its launch. Despite being a reported $125 million flop that “no-one bought”, its director believes that it could still go on to find an audience yet.

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