I don’t think I could survive The Banished Vault’s space management without its physical manual

You know how some games are notebook games? Well, The Banished Vault is a manual game, no two ways about it. Sure, you could theoretically make meticulous notes about all the planetary symbols and construction costs of the various buildings you’ll need to harvest and convert resources into fuel, alloys and elixirs as you hurtle through space trying to escape the terrifying Gloom based on its in-game manual. But when there’s a physical paper booklet that replicates all that for you in a much more easily accessible format, with several gorgeous illustrations of its mysterious space monastery to boot, not to mention infinitely better explanations of what everything does than I could ever hope to describe, it’s quickly become an essential part of my play experience.

I’m still working on my review for The Banished Vault (hopefully coming later this week), but as it launches on Steam today, I’d strongly recommend spending the extra £5/$5 to get one if you’re at all interested in Lunar Division’s space survival management ’em up. I don’t think I could have survived in the game without it.

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Spooky stealth ’em up Gloomwood adds bustling market district in latest update

Thief-but-with-guns game Gloomwood continues its early access crawl with today’s update, adding a delightful market district to the game. You can get your hair cut, buy a new outfit or two, and generally have a nice time. There definitely won’t be any murder or dangerous reasons to skulk through the shadows. And that dog? He doesn’t bite, honest. Take a look at the bustling shopping centre below.

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Armored Core 6 actually considered “a more open world route”

Recently I sat down with GGRecon for a roundtable-ish interview with Armored Core 6: Fires Of Rubicon director Masaru Yamamura and producer Yasunori Ogura to talk more about their upcoming mecha action game. And their answers gave us more of an insight into the game’s early development, where the story might take you, and how you might overcome some of its trickiest nuts and bolts.

While it won’t come as much of a surprise to Armored Core veterans, Armored Core 6 isn’t an open world game. If you’re a new FromSoftware-liker brought on board by the expansive world of Elden Ring, then yes, you might be a bit surprised. As I mention in my preview, Armored Core 6 sees you play a mecha-mercenary who selects jobs from a drop down menu and jets off to destroy whatever needs destroying. But Yamamura says FromSoft actually considered going down a more open world route in early stages of the game’s development.

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Humankind devs’ hit roguelike Dungeon Of The Endless is free to keep on Steam

Sega and Humankind developers Amplitude have begun their annual seasonal celebration Endless Summer to celebrate everything related to their loosely-connected Endless universe. From now until July 27th, there will be streams and news drops about their forthcoming tactical roguelite Endless Dungeon, and as a bonus, its excellent sort-of-predecessor Dungeon Of The Endless is free to keep on Steam for a limited time.

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Blue Protocol seems like a slick anime MMO, if an extremely predictable one

Another day, another Eastern MMO picked up by Amazon Games and repackaged for a Western audience. What’s the grind this time? Blue Protocol, an anime MMO developed by Bandai Namco that’s already out in Japan, and is due out in the West sometime in 2024. I played it for an hour and I’ve come away thinking it’s a slick operation, with some slight Monster Hunter edge to its combat. While the future sounds promising, questions remain around a world which seems a bit eh, and the ever looming march of the microtransactions.

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Starfield’s entire skill tree supposedly laid bare after someone spent 200 hours stitching together trailer footage

One eagle-eyed Starfield fan has apparently spent around 200 hours stitching together what could be the game’s entire skill tree using previously released footage of Bethesda’s epic space RPG. I’m not actually sure whether you can be a “Starfield fan” before the game releases, but this budding detective is at least a fan of the trailers, featurettes, and the Starfield Direct. Come and see what they’ve come up with.

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