Last week, Valve added in a feature that lets you browse Steam via a multitude of different accessibility tags. This week, it’s making Steam itself more accessible! Or more specifically, Steam in Big Picture Mode, and on devices running SteamOS, i.e. the Steam Deck of Lenovo Legion Go S. Valve shared word of the new accessibility setting in a blog post, though for now these are just a part of a beta update, so not everyone will have them just yet.
Dune: Awakening developers Funcom have revealed in a post-launch Reddit AMA that they’re currently aiming to release a fresh update full of quality of life-related tweaks in early July, as well as adding “new contracts across the board” down the line.
However, if you’re after big new stuff to do, you’ll have to wait for the major updates that’ll be releasing alongside the game’s DLCs.
I swear I don’t actually have anything against the Nintendo Switch 2, other than its suspect attempt at Zoom Meetings But Games and some slight jealousy that it got DLSS support before a PC handheld did. Even so, I do feel obliged to warn Steam Deck owners – and, in fact, anyone who has any current portable PC – away from microSD Express cards, support for which is one of the Switch 2’s key storage upgrades.
Rematch, the game about kicking it in the goal from Sifu and Absolver devs Sloclap, have launched today, June 19th. The folks behind it have rung in that occasion by outlining a bunch of their future plans, as well as saying they’re very sorry you can’t currently show off your mouse and keyboard skills by nutmegging some fool who owns one of those ex-boxers.
Don’t worry, though, crossplay and a bunch of other stuff are in the works for future updates to the foot-to-ball thing Nic and James dug the beta of, and that currently sits fourth in Steam’s top sellers list.
Ara: History Untold is a game I briefly gave a go last year, back when Civ 7 was still a game we were all yet to play and have a vast slew of different opinions about. I thought the little I played was alright, but didn’t stick with it that long, slipping back into the pair of comfy slippers that were Civ 6.
Now, though, Ara’s just gotten a big update, and it looks like it should solve some of the issues that folks flagged with the base game.
Do one of those kick-the-flips. Okay, now do it again but spinny. Wow, fellow teen, that was radical, well done. Here is some video game news for you as a reward: physics-funny skateboarding sim Skate (aka Skate 4) will release in a couple of months. That’s what publishers Electronic Arts say, anyway. You must be very excited to do more dinner tray flips and three-hundred-and-sixty popular shovel-its. Why yes, I am something of a skate boarder myself. How keen-eyed of you to notice.
I actually can’t remember the last time I played a shmup. Maybe a Gradius? I don’t know anything about ZPF’s genremates or even what its name stands for, but I do know a good colourful big bastard turtle when I see one, and that was enough for me to try the Steam demo.
“Great score!” Zam Pankman-Fried told me after I died 45 seconds in. From this, I learned that ZPF is a massive liar, but also that I actually quite like shmups still. Pretty compelling as far as avoid the bad thing ’em ups go.
When the tragically half-empty hooch barrel of potential that was Capone ’em up strategyEmpire Of Sin launched back in late 2020, it also sold a pass pledging two story expansions down the line. The first of these arrived in 2021. Time and more time passed, prompting a union of shaking fists to wave grubby promissory notes scrawled on diner hamburger wrappers and brace themselves for a trampling by the proverbial Pinkerton agents on horseback of continued disappointment. Despite this, that second DLC never materialised.
Do not fear the sound you hear. The Pinkerton’s have not found you – it is simply the heavy clopping of legal obligations being grudgingly fulfilled. Hunt For Aurora is now available, assuming there’s anyone left with the energy to avail it.
Well, you can’t say Remedy don’t have range. After the screeching survival horror of Alan Wake 2 comes FBC: Firebreak, a three-person multiplayer FPS spun off from Wakeverse stablemate (and excellent action game in its own right) Control. Perspective isn’t the only thing that shifts, either, as Firebreak reframes Control’s eerie, New Weird-influenced setting as a backdrop for comedy co-op shenanigans. There will be gnomes creating lightning storms.
Back in the Oldest House, the illogically vast and currently invaded headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, Firebreakers – volunteer office drones turned underqualified field agents – gear up to do battle with whatever outdated guns and jerry-rigged tools they can find. The Firebreak initiative is as haphazard and cobbled-together a task force as you’re likely to see, and ultimately, a reflection of the game it stars in: one that’s plucky and capable of impressing, yet never quite comes together as a cohesive prospect.
TallBoys and Critical Reflex have announced an open public playtest for Militsioner, the immersive sim in which you try to escape a town that swelters in the shadow of an extremely large, temperamental policeman. It would be nice to think the premise has gotten less relevant since we first covered the game in 2021, but I suspect that if you are currently living in, say, Los Angeles, you will find much to relate to. Here’s a trailer.