Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

There are a bunch of reasons I like The Tartarus Key (enough to make it our RPS Game Club pick this month), and one of them is that it’s not actually scary. Like, sure, you could attach the horror tag to it on Steam if you wanted, but it’s more of a costume for you to enjoy – like the family down the street who are really into Halloween and turn their suburban semi into a haunted house with a movie-quality zombie in the front yard. It’s really cool and you like it on its own terms, but being frightened isn’t so much the point as it is to remember you have enjoyed being frightened in the past. Also, for some reason the family won’t let you out of the living room until you complete a logic puzzle involving maths.

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“Will it or won’t it?” has been the big question. That is, will Final Fantasy 16 actually be released on PC or won’t it. It’s been emotional whiplash for some PC fans. A PC version was specified in the game’s announcement trailer, and then FF16 producer Yoshi-P walked it back and said that didn’t happen, and then Yoshi-P addressed his previous words and said he’d like to bring the game to PC eventually. Just don’t expect it within six months. Or before 2024, actually.

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Activision are shutting down Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera later this year to “focus on future Call Of Duty content including the current Warzone free-to-play experience”. Caldera, the new name for the original Warzone, was first released in March 2020, and was later renamed after Warzone 2 launched in November 2022.

Yesterday, Activision announced the death of Caldera on the official Call Of Duty blog, stating that “all Caldera gameplay, player progression, inventories, and online services” will expire. Any content for Caldera purchased in 2019’s Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War or Vanguard will still be accessible in those games.

Warzone 2.0 is currently underway with Season 4, and Activision stated that their development efforts for Call Of Duty moving forward will include “more Warzone content across consoles and PC” and the upcoming Warzone mobile game with “shared battle pass and cross-progression”.

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Frequent EGX goers will know that the Rezzed Zone has always been home to the best and most interesting games at the UK’s biggest gaming show, and RPS will be there on the ground this year, highlighting our favourites, bringing you various audio visual delights and more across the course of the weekend.

EGX 2023 runs from October 12th – 15th at London’s Excel this year, and RPS supporters can get 50% off Early Entry tickets (which is on top of the current 10% off discount available until July 7th for everyone else, I might add). Keen to hear more about exactly what we’ll be getting up to? Read on below for all the details.

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Evening Star, a new studio made up of the team that made Sonic Mania, have announced their first game, Penny’s Big Breakaway. While Sonic Mania was a 2D platformer, the studio’s first game under their new name brings them into the realm of 3D, taking an incredibly vibrant colour palette that would certainly work in any classic Sonic game, and marrying it a world that one could say is mildly reminiscent of the hedgehog’s rival Mario.

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EA are cutting themselves down the middle, with EA Games and EA Sports now making up two separate units, and the former getting a rebrand. From now on, EA Games will be known as EA Entertainment, which really doesn’t have as good a ring to it (no one’s going to be quoting “it’s in the entertainment,” any time soon are they?). The name change does imply a broader expansion into more than just games, but it’s obviously a bit of a wait and see kind of situation until EA show off something that isn’t a video game.

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Shown off at this year’s Summer Game Fest showcase, Sand Land is an upcoming RPG from the folks over at Ilca Inc, the developers of One Piece Odyssey, and the creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama. It’s an adaptation on one of Toriyama’s lesser-known mangas, which features a band of misfits who aim to right the wrongs of a king who’s hogged the desert’s vital water supply. I got to play it for all of 20 minutes, in a demo that was as stripped back as a grated cactus. Still, I got to sample a bit of roaming about in a tank, one brief stop at a town, an opening of one (1) chest, and some fighting. It seemed okay, I guess? But my main worry is whether its desert is interesting enough to hold people’s attention.

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Microsoft have announced they’re raising the price of Game Pass, but PC players don’t need to worry too much about it (for now, at least). As reported by The Verge, come July 6th, Xbox Game Pass will be going up from £8/ $9 a month to £9/ $11, and Game Pass Ultimate will increase from £11/ $15 a month to £13/ $17. If you’re just a PC player though, you’ve got nothing to worry about, as Microsoft hasn’t announced any changes for PC Game Pass at this point in time.

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Sega are once again hosting another Sonic Central, promising a look at a suite of Sonic projects currently in the works. The live stream will be airing tomorrow on both the official Sonic the Hedgehog YouTube and Twitch accounts, starting at 4pm BST/ 5pm CEST. “Tune in for a sneak peek of some of our upcoming projects, partnerships and events happening in 2023,” reads the announcement post from the official Sonic Twitter account.

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Horses are trotting their way into The Sims 4 as part of the game’s next expansion, with leaks sharing some specific details ahead of its full reveal. The official Sims Twitter account did show a short teaser trailer earlier this week of a Sim imagining a life out in the desert, promising a “rootin’ tootin’ expansion, two bold kits,” and a Behind the Sims presentation. You can check out the full trailer for that when it debuts later today, but leaks regarding the expansion were shared on the Sims Community fan site after details and screenshots were mistakenly shared on Steam earlier this week.

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