“Move over Hollow Knight,” declared Katharine (RPS in peace) in our Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown review, summarising this freshly-honed hunk of POP art as “a deep and challenging Metroid-like with some of the best platforming this side of Moon’s Ori games.” Sadly, for all the plaudits, the game doesn’t seem to have earned sufficient megabucks to justify keeping its development team together. Earlier this week, French journalist Gautoz reported that Ubisoft had disbanded The Lost Crown’s core dev team after turning down proposals for a sequel and further expansions. Speaking to RPS this morning, Ubisoft have confirmed that “most” of the Lost Crown’s dev team have moved onto other projects, while noting that there have been no layoffs as a result.
Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun
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Shin chan: Shiro And The Coal Town review: a nostalgic collectathon I can’t stop thinking about
When I was little, I really liked what I saw of Shin chan, even if it was just largely flashes of his bare arse on Japanese TV. He seemed mischievous, a bit of a menace, and part of a fun family dynamic. Flash forward to now and I can only describe the lad as… jarring. At least, I think he’s an odd flag-bearer for a series of games where you live out a nostalgic, Japanese summer in the countryside.
And I think it’s doubly weird that Shin chan: Shiro And The Coal Town opts for a collectathon approach, that doesn’t necessarily make the act of living out a Cicada Summer all that mesmerising. But, and this is a big but: I can’t stop thinking about it. Of all the games of 2024, Coal Town may have left the biggest impression on me. In a way, I hope it does for you, too.
Former Skyrim developer’s heavy metal open world hunting sim releases on Steam
Did you have a fine old time in Blackreach, the mazy, Dwemer-built underside of Skyrim’s sprawling mountain map? Do you like murdering Ents in slow motion? Do you want to see smells? You might be interested in The Axis Unseen, which has just launched on Steam – it’s the work of former Bethesda developer Nate Purkeypile, one of the big brains behind Blackreach.
Here’s a free god sim from the Shotgun King devs in which you Build The Sun
Shotgun King developers Punkcake Délicieux have quietly rolled out another ticklish oddity in the shape of Build The Sun, a work-in-progress 2D god sim. In Build The Sun you preside over a tribe of alarming yet cute inkblot creatures, who sometimes remind me of Pikmin and sometimes, of that awful ‘roided-up panther monster from the opening stretch of Another World. Your objective is, indeed, to build the sun, because there isn’t one: the game’s pastoral pixelart world is engulfed in darkness.
Netflix’s “Team Blue” of Halo, Overwatch and God Of War vets close without a single game to their name
Netflix have shut down one of their more trumpeted video game initiatives – a Californian studio known as team “Blue” and stocked with former Halo, God Of War and Overwatch developers. It was a major plank in Netflix’s on-going efforts to extend their film and TV streaming empire to what Nic insists on calling the “greasy screen”.
Tormenture takes the Inscryption meta-horror formula back to 8-bit gaming and the 1980s
I forgot about just-launched horror game Tormenture when ravelling together this week’s round-up of potent PC releases, but thankfully, Maw disciple Fachewachewa was on my case in the comments. It’s one of your ‘cursed video game’ videogames in the spirit of Inscryption and Pony Island, and based on a quick blast with the demo, it seems lush.
It’s set in the 1980s, a premise I now automatically find horrible because I was born in the 1980s and that was, like, a million years ago. You’re a kid who’s playing a legendary 8-bit game that’s said to be possessed by evil spirits. The experience sees you alternating between the surprisingly labyrinthine space of the game, and the increasingly threatening environment of your bedroom, where terrible toys abound. Did you have one of those phones on wheels with eyes as a kid? Whoever invented that deserves a spell in Arkham Asylum.
How Sonar Shock became the boldest immersive sim of the year: “I don’t think a big game developer would have done it this way”
Not many people hit the refund button on Sonar Shock, the indie immersive sim that’s rated Very Positive on Steam. But those that do tend to complain they couldn’t get the hang of the controls. You can understand why. Try to strafe left to dodge an attack from a blubber monster, and you’ll instead rotate on the spot. Attempt to turn the camera with a flick of the mouse, and you’ll discover that your view remains fixed in place – the cursor moving across the screen as if searching for an icon on your desktop.
“The controls are actually one of the biggest points that make people bounce off the game,” developer Raphael Bossniak admits.
And yet they’re also a unique selling point. Where last year’s extraordinary System Shock remake embraced the interface and keyboard conventions of modern gaming, Sonar Shock leans into the experimentation of pre-Quake control schemes – long before WASD and mouselook became standardised for the sake of ease and sanity.
Dave The Diver’s creator wants to make games about Dave’s backstory and explore different genres
Dave The Diver is getting a story DLC and, possibly, more games set in the same universe. This comes from an interview with developer Mintrocket’s new CEO Jaeho Hwang, who spoke to VGC at Gamescom Asia about their plans to expand Dave and his diving. A future Dave may not even dive, but like, connive. Keep a beehive alive. Jive. Collect tithe.
AMD’s Ryzen 9000X3D processors, with their fancy-pants cache, are launching November 7th
‘Tis the season for new gaming CPUs. While Intel gear up to release their efficiency-focused Core Ultra 200S chips, AMD have announced a November 7th launch date for their Ryzen 9000X3D series – the latest to use their framerate-juicing 3D V-Cache. No specific CPUs have been named, for some reason, but we can be reasonably sure from leaks and retail listing whoopsies that this launch will include at least one of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, Ryzen 9 9900X3D, and Ryzen 9 9950X3D.
In paranoia pot-boiler Gangstalk you are the person chasing you
Gangstalk is a cat-and-mouse game in which you play both cat and mouse. It’s a stalking game in which you are the person stalking you and also, you are the person being stalked. By you. Yes, I too am wearing an expression of puppy-eyed dismay and confusion. But it sounds interesting, sufficiently interesting that I can disregard the very loud DYSTOPIAN WORLD framing in the trailer.