A decade later, the Lutece Twins are still the best thing in BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite that finally convinced me to take the plunge. And I can’t exactly complain: the series’ Rapture arc — made up of the first and second games, plus the prequel novel by none other than John “The Crow” Shirley — now makes up maybe 10% of my personality, having given me two of my favourite video games, my favourite video game tie-in book, and a front-running contender for my favourite video game locale all at once.

I just wish that, after all that prep I did for it, I’d actually liked BioShock Infinite a bit more.

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Slay The Spire Downfall mod developers are making their own tabletop fantasy roguelike

Slay The Spire has remained an incredibly popular deckbuilding roguelike, so it naturally invited a healthy modding community that added fun stuff to the game – goofy googley eyes included. One of Slay The Spire’s most popular mods was called Downfall, a huge fan-made expansion that added tons of playable characters, a new mode, and more. Those developers – Table 9 Studio – are now back with their own not-modded game: an auto-battling, fantasy Chess roguelike called Tales & Tactics.

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Paradox’s rival to The Sims urges players to take minimum PC requirements “seriously”

The Sims 4 and your ears pricked up during this month’s reveal of Paradox Interactive’s upcoming life sim Life By You, you might want to check your PC’s specifications before it enters early access later this year. During a chat with Paradox Tectonic’s general manager Rod Humble at this year’s GDC, I spoke to him about whether there was any plan to accommodate lower-end PC specifications when Life By You enters early access this September, and he answered by urging players to take its minimum PC specifications “seriously”.

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Dark And Darker removed from Steam following accusations of stolen trade secrets

Dark And Darker, a dungeon-crawling take on Escape From Tarkov’s PvPvE that’s been gaining popularity over the last few months. Alice0 enjoyed its alpha playtest last December, and it ended up becoming one of the most popular games of February’s Steam Next Fest. It wasn’t due to launch in full until sometime this winter, but that window’s now up in the air after Dark And Darker was removed from Steam over the weekend, following a messy legal dispute between Nexon and developers Ironmace, who have been accused of “using trade secrets and copyrighted information,” allegedly stolen from Nexon.

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Left 4 Dead 3 is a non-priority, according to Counter-Strike 2 files

Counter-Strike 2’s files. The mention of “Left4Dead3” was recently spotted in CS2’s files (thanks, Reddit) which sparked online speculation for a third game in the series. The files state that the “severity” is “high”, the “version” is “2”, but what about the “priority?” Bad news for fans of the run-and-gunning zombie shooter: according to the files, the priority is “none.”

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RPS@PAX 2023: We chat with Tic Toc Games about their upcoming, smack-talking RPG Wrestle Story

Persona 5 let you suplex your opponents. Even better, imagine if those moves were pulled off through timing based minigames that resembled the battles found in Nintendo’s excellent (and underrated) Mario & Luigi RPG series. Sounds good, right? Well guess what, that game exists! It’s called Wrestle Story and it’s definitely a project to keep an eye on.

After spending twenty glorious minutes with its colourful demo at PAX East, I was keen to chat to creative director Steve Jimenez about the team’s inspirations, the challenges of translating wrestling into a turn-based RPG and the exciting locations that players will attempt to liberate from a group of devious heels.

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RPS@PAX 2023: Animal Well’s subterranean world is both beautiful and unsettling

Animal Well’s solo developer and publisher Bigmode about creating their eerie subterranean world. We then had a chance to go hands on with the PAX East demo, and wow, we were both incredibly impressed. Watch the video below for our enthusiastic impressions:

If we could give an RPS ‘Bestest Best in show’ award to a game, is would be Animal Well. Liam and I loved the game’s dense atmosphere, spider-web of interconnected caverns, and creepy creatures that lurk in the dark. We also loves the effects the game has, which reminded Liam of Octopath Traveler’s visual flairs. If I had to compare it to one game, it would be Hollow Knight, which is very exciting.

We have plenty more PAX East indies for you to check out so make sure you have a peruse through our RPS@PAX tag. A couple of our favourites have been chaotic rouguelite Pizza Possum, Resident Evil-like Alone In The Dark, and island exploration game Mythwrecked.

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RPS@PAX 2023: We chat with the WrestleQuest devs about broken noses and busting RPG traditions

WrestleQuest last year at PAX West, and this time at PAX East we finally cornered them in the ring for a proper interview.

Watch below to learn about how the developers created their zero to hero story, how they’re addressing myths and persaonl issues in the world of pro wresting, as well as sharing a story about how one of the team got their nose broken in a wrestling accident during development.

My main take away from the interview is how much of the RPG incorporates all aspects of Wrestling, not just the ring fights we see on TV. Another interesting thing is that Mega Cat reached out to a handful of real-life wrestlers to ask their permission to use their likeness in the game – not an easy feat to secure, I’m sure.

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RPS@PAX 2023: Hell Of An Office is a fiendishly fast action-platformer in the vein of Neon White

PAX East, but none left my head reeling as much as 43 Studios’ fiendishly frantic action platfotmer Hell Of An Office. It’s a super fast parkour adventure in the vein of Neon White, and after ten minutes with the demo my heart race was through the roof. If I owned a fitbit it would have been screaming at me to have a nice sit down with a cuppa. Check out my full impressions in the video below:

Hell Of An Office puts your platforming reflexes to the test as you’re tasked with sprinting ad jumping your way straight outta hell. With only a stapler as your means of survival, you need to navigate through each level before it slowly sinks into the burning lava. React quickly, or fall victim to Hell’s scorching pools.

If you love the blood-pumping, sweaty palm inducing action-platforming of Neon White, make sure to keep an eye on Hell Of An Office as it makes it’s way through Early Access.

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