Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Layers Of Fear — recently quietly renamed from its working title Layers Of Fears — is a game that requires a bit of explanation. It shares its title with the 2016 game of the same name, and is being overseen by original developers Bloober Team. But it’s neither a remake nor a reboot; although, in some ways, it’s both of those things. It’s more a “reimagining” of the whole Layers Of Fear series to date, as well as its apparent swansong. It incorporates ground-up remakes of the two-and-a-half existing games in the series in Unreal Engine 5, alongside a new gaiden chapter complementing the first game, and a brand-new framing narrative tying the whole lot together.

I recently sat in on an early preview presentation of Layers Of Fear, chatting with creative director Damian Kocurek. Listeners to one very specific episode of the EWS podcast might recall that I’m something of a Layers Of Fear lore theorist, so of course I was delighted to nerd out over what this new(ish) game is all about. Similarly detail-oriented horror fans out there will hopefully share my excitement when I tell them that yes, the rats are back, and you can even catch a brief glimpse of the Rat Queen.

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Half-Life 2 VR mod announced they were moving on to making a virtual reality goggle version of Half-Life 2: Episode One – and we now know it will be arriving on Steam later today. What’s more, we also have a release date for their VR mod of Episode Two. That will come next month on April 6th, according to its Steam page.

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survival games. With Sons Of The Forest taking over Steam at the moment and Capcom’s sensational remake of Resident Evil 4 just on the horizon, we’ve got survival games on the brain right now – or at least the bit that hasn’t been chewed or nibbled on by the worrying pack of zombs circling the Treehouse lately, anyway. The less said about that, the better, because some the team are looking mighty peaky right now. Before they turn, though, come and tell us about your favourite survival games so the rest of us have some good tips for how to save our skins.

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The RPS Time Capsule, where members of the RPS Treehouse each pick one game from a given year to save from extinction while all other games fizzle and die on the big digital griddle in the sky before blinking out of existence. This time, we’re turning our preservation mitts on the year 2012, a year absolutely stacked with some pretty stellar releases. But which ones will make the cut and be safely ensconced inside our cosy capsule for future generations? Come on down to find out.

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Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters ended up turning me into a bit of a Warhammer game convert last year, and over the last nine months or so I’ve been steadily hovering up as many Warhammer-themed strategy games as I can muster. Today, I can add another one to my roster for literally zero pounds, as Proxy Studio’s 4X Warhammer-thon Gladius – Relics Of War is now over on the Epic Games Store for the next week.

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Resident Evil 4. Feeling that the classic top-down formula that had seen the series thrive during the 90s had grown stale, this follow-up was to be a total reinvention of survival horror as a concept. Something fresh. Dynamic. Exciting. The slate was wiped completely clean, and from that blank canvas, something exceptional was created. A game that not only redefined the franchise, but third-person action games as a whole.

For eighteen tumultuous years, Capcom has tried to surpass the success of Resident Evil 4. The fifth and sixth entries doubled down on the action to mixed results, while seven and eight focused on scares as seen from a first-person viewpoint. Meanwhile, 2019’s Resident Evil 2 remake looked to the past for its inspiration, delivering a masterful retread that blended responsive third-person combat with the exquisite production values of the series’ more modern titles. But with the release of Resident Evil 4 remake, Resident Evil has finally come full circle. Whereas the original release was a rejection of the games that came before, this remake is instead a celebration of where the series went next. Action-focused combat. Photo-realistic environments. Gooey monsters, hammy characters, ridiculous storylines. What better way to remake the highest peak of the series, than to build it upon the foundations of the very games it went on to inspire? Resident Evil 4 is a rambunctious thrill ride that is as good – if not, dare I say it, a bit better – than the original game.

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Dwarf Fortress has long had babies, but if you’re using the recent Steam release and its sprite art, they look like adults. That’s going to change soon in what Kitfox call their “cutest update ever”, which will add baby sprites for every creature in-game, from aarvarks to dwarves to troglodytes.

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already knew that Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly was arriving on April 20th. Now we know that it’ll launch on Game Pass on day one.

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quite lovely even in early access, and its success has apparently enabled developers Stray Fawn Studio to become a publisher.

Their first project is publishing Earth Of Oryn, a fellow citybuilder with a medieval setting which is taking inspiration from both Banished, Age Of Empires and RimWorld.

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Steam Deck has spent its entire life thus far without even a temporary price drop. That ends today, as the Steam Spring Sale has launched with the first official Steam Deck savings – a 10% cut across the range – alongside the more expected dealsplosion of discounted games.

What’s more, this sale could also be the last time that the Steam Deck joins in a Steam sale, at least for a very long time. Lawrence Yang, a Valve designer who recently spoke to us about the Deck’s first year in the wild, has also told me that the company are “looking at this as a one-time deal in celebration of Steam Deck’s anniversary.” You’ll therefore have until March 23rd, when the Spring Sale ends, to seize a saving on the handheld PC before it returns to base pricing – maybe for good.

All three Steam Deck versions are part of the sale, shedding exactly 10% apiece. The 64GB model is down from £349 / $399 to £314.10 / $359.10, the 256GB model drops from £459 / $529 to £413.10 / $476.10, and the top 512GB model falls from £569 / $649 to £512.10 / $584.10. Unlike the sad old days of 2022, there’s no lengthy waiting period once you put your order in, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes the full two weeks of Valve’s one-to-two week delivery estimate, what with the likely surge in demand.

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