Vultures – Scavengers Of Death is a turn-based roguelike that looks like a vintage Resident Evil game

Crow Country, Conscript, and now Vultures – Scavengers Of Death. We really do seem to be living through a craze for PS1-style horror games. Vultures is different to the others, though, in that it’s turn-based zombie crunching combined with roguelike scavenging to survive and get more powerful. It’s arriving on Steam sometime soon and it’s probably worth a looksy if you’re after biohazard disposal with a tactical twist.

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Horror game The Mortuary Assistant is turning into a job sim, thanks to an “endless embalming mode” update

We’ve had a glut of articles about gloomier video games on here today, Rachel’s bright and breezy Dungeons Of Hinterberg review notwithstanding. Tomorrow, I promise, it’ll be wall-to-wall wholesome life sims, pastel petals and hug emojis as far as the eye can see. But before then, a quick piece on well-received DreadXP-published horror sim The Mortuary Assistant, which will shortly be updated with an “endless embalming-only mode” that strips out the game’s supernatural scares and turns it into a very downbeat job sim.

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Corpus Edax is a Deus Ex-style immersive sim with a frankly irresponsible number of violence-based verbs

A good immersive sim, by its very nature, offers myriad varied approaches to solving problems. And yet, I find myself wanting to get hyper-specific when writing about the action of Corpus Edax, because it has an incredibly gratifying metal pipe sound, whether you’re stealthy wrapping it around the back of a blissfully unaware fool’s noggin, or lobbing it directly at their knee caps. In fact – although the game does have a delightful array of classic verbs, along with a few surprises – many of them are simply conducive to a stirring round of fisticuffs, to write my most British sentence of the week.

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Horror game Slitterhead is The Thing vs The Thing and I really hope it’s also a sandbox stealth game

I’ve been fumbling for a grasp on Bokeh’s skull-splitting horror game Slitterhead since I first heard the words “brought to you by Keiichiro Toyama, former designer of Silent Hill, Siren and Gravity Rush”. Thanks to a new interview, I now have a proper description of the relationship between protagonist and antagonist. Friends, Romans and countrymen: this is a game about a war between two sets of body-stealing monsters, waged in the neon shadows of a fictional East Asian city. It all puts me strongly in mind of a certain John Carpenter movie about squelchy goings-on in Antarctica.

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Got a desktop full of unfinished projects? That’s okay, so does Square Enix creative Tetsuya Nomura

When you dive into the mess of folders on your PC, what do you find? Cobweb-plastered manuscripts for those twelve fantasy novels you started? Mouldy design documents for those nine games you never actually began coding? Perhaps dozens of little motheaten thumbnails of that masterpiece you’re planning to someday paint? Relax, I’m not calling you out (I have my own groaning cybercabinet of neglect). Rather, I’m here to say don’t worry. Everyone does it. Even famous Final Fantasy character designer and Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura, who has a “huge number of game proposals lying dormant” in a mish mash of folders on his PC. You’re just like him!

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Until Then is the only visual novel game I’ve truly enjoyed

I’ve tried visual novel games in the past, like A Space For The Unbound and Hatoful Boyfriend. And what’s frustrating is that I just don’t get on with them, despite knowing that they can convey brilliant stories through all sorts of interesting cuts and shots and whatnot. I’m sorry to report that certain stories won’t grab me if they’re not ticking along at just the right pace or if they don’t pull me in straight away. I’m a needy soul, someone who demands immediacy and a special emotional sauce.

Until Then is, without a doubt, the only visual novel-y game I’ve truly enjoyed. In fact, I’d say I’ve more than enjoyed it – I think it’s superb so far. The teens that drive this story are written with an authenticity I’ve not encountered before, and the 3D interwoven with the 2D adds some surprising – besides the literal – depth.

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Dungeons of Hinterberg review: a breezy action RPG that’s as pretty as a postcard

Usually when a game makes me want to stop playing and go outside it’s a bad sign, but with Dungeons of Hinterberg it’s different. It’s an action RPG that made me pine for the outdoors and want to be whisked away from all my responsibilities and just exist for a bit. Each time I would finish playing I’d be thinking about my next getaway, and although dungeon delving wouldn’t be on my holiday itinerary Dungeons of Hinterberg is making me think twice.

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No Man’s Sky’s Worlds update adds walking houses, fancier weather and a touch of Starship Troopers

No Man’s Sky is getting a big new Worlds update which treats the space sim’s gazillions of planets to a sumptuous overhaul, using technology devised for stablemate fantasy sim Light No Fire, which only has one planet, albeit a “literally Earth-sized” one with dragons. Catch a deep dive trailer for the Worlds update below.

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Multiplayer FPS Over The Top WW1 guns for Battlefield’s crown with 200-head battles and Mount & Blade-inspired melee

If DICE’s Battlefield series lacks for one feature, it’s surely the option to dig trenches. Properly dig them, I mean, not just waft them into existence with a wave of your magic trowel, a la Battlefield V. Think Minecraft, but with howitzers instead of Creepers. I have never been to war, but I do own several shovels, and let me tell you, if I ever hear artillery fire or even just dangerously raised voices round these parts, the first thing I will do is tunnel straight down.

Fuck it, I might do that if I read any negative comments on this news piece. Vex me not with your pestilent talk of “map balancing”. Watch this trailer for Flying Squirrel’s new FPS Over The Top WW1 instead. It abounds with trench-digging, and it looks like you can make some decent-sized craters, too.

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