Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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Game design as a Harvesting: the implications of Amnesia’s most horrible idea


Beware major plot spoilers for the entire Amnesia series, together with descriptions of fictional torturing techniques.

The most ghoulish of Amnesia’s many ghoulish ideas is “vitae”. It’s a luminous, blue-green fluid that can be used as an energy source, a chemical catalyst and a supernatural healing agent. Each Amnesia game is broadly a story about the production of vitae, with some levels consisting of huge distillation and refining apparata, and major plot developments tied to what you do with it. In the original Amnesia: The Dark Descent, you’ll brew potions using vitae in order to keep a decapitated head alive. In the latest game, Amnesia: Rebirth, you’ll use ornate metal cannisters of the stuff like batteries to power otherworldly machines. Vitae is the blood and breath of Amnesia, the grease upon the narrative axels, the fuel in its boiler, the miracle McGuffin that sustains its nastier flights of fantasy. But what is vitae, exactly? Agony.

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PC Game Pass is getting nearly every interesting game in November

Narrative clambering adventure Jusant, which Alice B just labelled a masterpiece, has arrived on Xbox Game Pass today. Grungy, low fantasy stabbing sandbox Wartales has also arrived, several months after we labelled it thrilling.

But there are several more big hitters due across November including the latest Football Manager, Like A Dragon Gaiden: Really Long Subtitle, and bathhouse management sim Spirittea. To my mind, basically every major, interesting game from November is on the way to the subscription.

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Starfield mod unlocks the ability to build your own spacestations – “all of the code was already in the game”

In smashing news for the galaxy’s irrational planet-haters, some adept tinkerer has created a Starfield mod that lets you build your own space-stations. Mind you, it appears the associated functionality was secretly part of Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG all along, perhaps destined to be unlocked by a DLC pack, like a slumbering fairytale royal awaiting true love’s kiss.

The modder in question is vexthecollector, whose catchily-named Spacestations for Outposts lets you bolt together hab modules, windows and docking bays to fashion your very own Deep Space Nine. Sadly for my character, the acutely terra-phobic star pirate Mary Read, you’ll need to first build an outpost on a planet in order to access the goods.

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Modern Warfare 3 release time: When does MW3 release?

Looking for the Modern Warfare 3 release time? Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is almost upon us, with the campaign, multiplayer, and zombie modes unlocking for most members of the public on either November 9 or November 10, depending on your location across the globe. If you’ve pre-ordered MW3, you can also preload the game and enjoy the campaign up to a week early. Whether you participated in the beta and can’t wait to get back in action or are a new player simply trying to find out when the game unlocks, you’re in the right place.

Below, we’ll list all the Modern Warfare 3 release times, as well as when you can preload the full game and the Campaign Early Access.

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It’s “frightening” how fast we have to release Like A Dragon games to stay “relevant”, says Yakuza writer

A little knowledge can be worse than no knowledge at all. I know a little about the Yakuza series, having reviewed the 1980s-set Yakuza Zero for this very parish in 2018, and tried a bit of 2019’s turn-based battler Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Fast-forward to 2023, and all Yakuza games are now Like A Dragon games, including the forthcoming Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which is an… Animal Crossing game, actually? With skateboarding? I’m still getting my head around the existence of a zombie spin-off, Dead Souls, to say nothing of the samurai-era Like A Dragon: Ishin. And then there’s the inter-quel Like a Dragon Gaiden, due this November, which seems like a relatively straight-laced delve into the past of original protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. Phew, it’s just as well Ed Thorn wrote that guide to the order you should play the Yakuza games in.

It sounds like the developers at Ryu ga Gotoku Studio have a hard time keeping track themselves, especially given the rate at which Sega publish Like A Dragon games. According to studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama, Like A Dragon’s creators feel a lot of pressure to get the games done quickly, not just with a view to making money but because as projects that riff so copiously on pop culture, Like A Dragon stories go out of date fast.

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Screenshot Saturday Tuesday: Grappling hooks, a stabby car, and giving ghosts the finger

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. Well, usually on Monday; yesterday I was instead up in the Highlands admiring autumn. But today! Today my eye has been caught by an even greater quantity of grappling hooks and slick movement tricks than usual, along with some chill scenes, typing violence, and giving ghosts the finger.

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Lunacid, a homage to From Software before Dark Souls, launches out of early access to Very Positive verdicts

I’ve only just read Sin’s thoughts on Akuma Kira’s Lunacid and lo and behold, the PS1-styled, first-person dungeon crawler has now released out of Steam Early Access, to considerable rejoicing. Lunacid is a homage to classic FromSoftware games – no, not that juvenile upstart Dark Souls, but King’s Field and Shadow’s Tower, which date back to the late 1990s.

I played one of the King’s Field games as a sprog and found it to be an extended cave system full of lava, demons and torment. Lunacid sort of applies the perspective and medieval fantasy combat of that series to a story reminiscent of Demon’s Souls – the From-alike that spurred the Japanese studio to international fame – with a world that has been flooded with toxic mist by a “sleeping old one below”. Your job, as some unfortunate outcast chucked into a pit, is to journey downward and confront this mysterious creature, using any and all combinations of rapiers, clubs and fireballs. Off you go then.

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Remedy discuss Control 2 and the Max Payne remakes, while Sam Lake teases “huge budget dark gothic fantasy”

Fresh from the release of Alan Wake 2 – and apparently with a view to driving me nuts, because I haven’t had a chance to play Alan Wake 2 yet – Remedy have shared some titbits about future projects. These include the modestly-known about Control 2, a sequel to the paranormal Brutalist telekinet ’em up that is seeing “good progress”, and the forthcoming remakes of Max Payne 1 and 2, on which Remedy are collaborating with GTA and Max Payne 3 developer Rockstar.

Further afield, there’s the mysterious Condor project, a co-op multiplayer Control spin-off (pictured above) that builds on Remedy’s experience crafting the single-player component for wayward service-based shooter CrossfireX. And at the very edge of sight, there’s the faint outline of something called Codename Vanguard, about which naff-all is known. Could it be that “crazy, huge budget, dark gothic fantasy” Remedy’s creative director Sam Lake would like one day to make?

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