Have A Nice Death has left early access after a year of updates

Have A Nice Death‘s dark art and quick-slashing combat bring Hollow Knight to mind, but it has more in common with Hades and Dead Cells. One of the things it has in common with those games is that it was released in early access. After a little more than a year, version 1.0 arrived this week, bringing a final area, a new boss, and the end of its storyline.

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RPS@PAX 2023: Become besties with Greek gods on an accidental vacation in Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island

Roki when it first released back in 2020, and keen to see what developers Polygon Treehouse have gotten up to since, I jumped at the opportunity to play the PAX East demo for Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island. You can watch my impressions of the demo in the video below:

In Mythwrecked you play as Alex, a backpacker who has washed up on the sun-drenched shores of Ambrosia Island. As she begins exploring, she soon realises that this island seems to be a hot spot for the gods from ancient Greek myths. Your task is to befriend each god, help them restore their memories, and find a way back to civilisation.

From playing the demo, you can see much of what made Roki fun reflected in Mythwrecked. The environments are interesting to poke around in, puzzles are breezy brain ticklers, and it has Polygon Treehouse’s sense of humour. Each Greek god has a humerous twist on their lore, and during the demo I had a fun time chatting with Hermes, who is dressed in nothing more than a pair of skimpy white speedos and a matching white sweat band – a bold choice of attire.

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RPS@PAX 2023: Cult classic horror Alone In The Dark returns with promises of Resident Evil-style intrigue

PAX East game highlight straight from the show floor, and this time we decided to revisit a cult horror classic: Alone In The Dark. This psychological horror is being developed by Pieces Interactive with publishing backing from THQ Nordic and is a love letter to the original game released back in the 90s.

As someone who had played the original, and RPS’ Resident Evil uber fan, Liam decided to check out the demo and you can hear his impressions in the video below:

According to the devs at the THQ booth, this demo is a stand-alone prequel story that will not be in the final game, but shares the same eerie atmosphere and action that’ll be in the main game. This reimagining is set in the Gothic American south and in the main game you’ll be playing as Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood as they navigate the monster infested Derceto Manor, the same mansion featured in the demo.

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RPS@PAX 2023: The coolest things we saw on the show floor

PAX East. There’s a lot of cool booths, fun props, and generally weird stuff to see, so we’ve chosen our absolute favourites and have listed them in video form for your viewing pleasure.

Everything at PAX East is situated in one massive hall (instead of PAX West’s multiple floors, rooms, and buildings) so it’s nice and easy to see everything in one or two loops. It doesn’t feel cramped at all, even with Friday’s busy crowds, and the booths are as spectacular as ever.

Some of our favourites included Devolver Digital’s movie theatre-inspired booth, which has the new addition of a candle-lit shrine for Cult Of The Lamb‘s upcoming free expansion Relics Of The Old Faith. We also loved Ysbryd Games’ Demonschool booth which had a school desk layout and cool retro TV. Another favourite was the animated robot dinosaur (complete with rideable saddle) that we found at the Roots Of Pacha demo builds.

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The sets aren’t ready, and the actors have no eyes: making game trailers

Realtime Nordic, a studio that makes, specifically, video game trailers. “…and we haven’t actually shot anything, so you’ll need to do that yourself. Some of the actors won’t come out of their trailers. One of them will but if you shoot him from the front you realise he’s got no eyes, but don’t show the audience that. It’s not intentional, he’s getting them fixed. Also can you film it twice, for different streaming platforms? Make a really good version for Netflix and a slightly worse looking one for Quibi.”

Every so often a game trailer comes along that makes me think, hang on, that was bloody brilliant! I bet some people made that! Most recently it was Creative Assembly’s Immortal Empires trailer. Well, I’ve been digging around and I’m happy to report that yes, although I’m the first one to just see a trailer as an algorithm trying to snatch my coin purse away like a manure-encrusted Victorian ne’er-do-well, game trailers are made by humans. They’re often humans who do it as as specific job, either in-house at a developer or as an outside agency like Realtime Nordic. Enlightened and enthralled, I asked some of them about what went into the strange space that is making the trailers for your favourite games.

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Former GTA boss unveils MindsEye, a new “blockbuster” available in Robloxlike Everywhere

Everywhere (not to be confused with Everything) was a big fat question mark at last year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live. It comes from Build A Rocket Boy, the studio founded by ex-GTA boss Leslie Benzies, and despite its cryptic reveal trailer, AliceB theorised it was some kind of Robloxlike. Turns out her hunch was correct – Everywhere is a platform that allows players to create their own custom content. To show off what the tools can do, Benzies and the team unveiled MindsEye, an episodic “blockbuster” adventure available inside Everywhere. A game set inside a game, if you will.

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Sons Of The Forest’s newest update adds a demon boss and nerfs cat food

Sons Of The Forest? Perhaps you’ve become a self-sufficient blueberry empire, surviving off handfuls of fruit while cannibals knock at your door. Or maybe you’ve gone full Charlie Kelly, consuming tins of cat food found around the island. If so, it’s time for a diet cleanse. Sons Of The Forest’s newest patch adds a demon boss, a new cave system, and tons of other improvements. It’s also nerfing cat food, since it was overpowered and, well, are there actually any cats in the game?

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Deep Rock Galactic Legacy Edition is staying forever now

Deep Rock Galactic’s fifth anniversary, developer Ghost Ship took us back in time to the mystical land of 2018 and let us play Deep Rock Galactic Legacy, a version of the co-op shooter as it was back in 2018, before all of the updates. It was a fun, nostalgic way to let fans reminisce on the game’s infantile days. Ghost Ship had planned to remove Legacy today – March 23rd – but after fan feedback, they’ve decided to keep Legacy edition around indefinitely.

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