Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

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• Team17 CEO says "action will be taken" to address last week's allegations
• Baldur's Gate 3 now expected to launch in 2023
• Baldur's Gate 3's new barbarian makes anger an art form
• Paradox launch DLC subscription service for Hearts Of Iron IV today
• Cyberpunk 2077 update 1.5 brings better AI, reworked perks, and appearance customisation
• Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams is a do-a-jigsaw-sim that may consume me whole
• Elden Ring system requirements released, minimum specs list the GTX 1060 and 12GB of RAM
• Demeo's PC version is a cool TRPG hangout that probably won't get as many players as it deserves
• Dune: Spice Wars gets back to basics with its compelling mix of 4X ambition and real-time strategy
• Terraria has yet another update coming, those filthy liars
• Dear Esther is free to keep on Steam right now
• GOG's new sale has 50% off Cyberpunk 2077 and 60% off Disco Elysium
• Total War: Warhammer 3 review: a heavyweight RTS with transformative changes to multiplayer
• Wordle too easy? Try solving four grids at once in Quordle
• Lost Ark broke CS:GO and Dota playercount records, despite a technically bumpy weekend
• New stealth RPG Abermore has big Thief meets Dishonored vibes
• Lost Ark gets a straight performance boost with DirectX 11, surprising no one

Team17 CEO says "action will be taken" to address last week's allegations Posted: 15 Feb 2022 01:55 PM PST Team17 CEO Michael Pattison has addressed allegations by staff that the company underpays and overworks staff, and failed to address HR complaints. In a company-wide meeting held last Friday, details of which were shared with Eurogamer, Pattison said that "action has to be taken." Read more

Baldur's Gate 3 now expected to launch in 2023 Posted: 15 Feb 2022 11:31 AM PST Larian Studios have always been a little vague on when Baldur's Gate 3 will leave early access because, well, that's how early access works. At one point they had suggested 2021 might be a possibility, then they said they were aiming for 2022, and now they're expecting the fantasy RPG will be finished in 2023. This news came alongside tonight's 'Panel From Hell' livestream focused on Patch 7, where Larian revealed the Barbarian class and the Improvised Weapons system which lets you wield even enemies as weapons. Read more

Baldur's Gate 3's new barbarian makes anger an art form Posted: 15 Feb 2022 11:30 AM PST Baldur’s Gate’s most famous barbarian wasn’t actually a barbarian at all. Technically speaking, Minsc was a ranger - a man of the woods who just happened to spin into a rage during battle, hitting friend or foe for extra damage, while ignoring blows that would fell a tree. It was a classification that came with its benefits: since every ranger was entitled to an animal companion, Minsc had justification for his connection to Boo, the “miniature giant space hamster” that lived in his inventory. But the primary reason for the misnomer was a gap in the rules of Dungeons & Dragons. “Second edition didn’t have the barbarian class,” remembers lead designer James Ohlen. “Baldur’s Gate 2 used third edition classes, but by then, it was too late.” Larian Studios, the current custodians of the series, don’t have any such issues. Working with D&D’s fifth edition, which has full and flavoursome rules that allow players to embody barbarians, the developers have adapted the class for use in Baldur’s Gate III. It’s a typically meticulous transposition that holds true to the tabletop game’s definition of what makes a barbarian boil: “More than a mere emotion, their anger is the ferocity of a cornered predator, the unrelenting assault of a storm, the churning turmoil of the sea.” Read more

Paradox launch DLC subscription service for Hearts Of Iron IV today Posted: 15 Feb 2022 10:02 AM PST Paradox Interactive are notoriously enthusiastic about DLC, often releasing years of expansions and add-ons for their big strategy games rather than leaping straight into sequels. So as an alternative to spending £100-odd for all a game's DLC, Paradox have started dabbling in letting players pay monthly fees to play them. The next game to start such a DLC subscription service is Hearts Of Iron IV, launching today. Like the others, it'll charge £4 per month. Or alternatively, you can still just buy DLC for keepsies. Read more

Cyberpunk 2077 update 1.5 brings better AI, reworked perks, and appearance customisation Posted: 15 Feb 2022 08:35 AM PST CD Projekt Red have finally launched Cyberpunk 2077's long-awaited Update 1.5, which for us here on PC means newness including a rebuild of the perk trees, AI improvements, the ability to change V's appearance, new apartments to buy, and loads more. Oh, and Update 1.5 will bring the long-awaited next-gen version to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Xeriex XS. Read more

Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams is a do-a-jigsaw-sim that may consume me whole Posted: 15 Feb 2022 07:56 AM PST Last year, I made an impassioned plea for more puzzley-jigsaw games, but I did not expect my call to be answered in such a comprehensive fashion so quickly. Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams, by That's Nice Games, is a jigsaw game that came to Steam last December. No, more than that. It is a doing-a-jigsaw game. A jigsaw sim. See, most jigsaw games - and I idly toy with the idea of playing a bit of any new one I find on Steam, before realising that is a fool's errand - are just kind of 2D, put together this flat JPEG of a flower that I have cut into triangles. There's no tactile pleasure to be had. But Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams is a little one bed mezzanine flat in which you do puzzles - on the floor, on the kitchen table, on the rug - and each puzzle piece is a little 3D thing you can pick up and drop and turn around. Read more

Elden Ring system requirements released, minimum specs list the GTX 1060 and 12GB of RAM Posted: 15 Feb 2022 07:26 AM PST The Elden Ring PC system requirements are up on Steam, and let’s just say you won’t be Eldening any rings on a spendthrift system. The minimum specs include erstwhile mid-range hardware like the 3GB GeForce GTX 1060 and the Intel Core i5-8400, as well as an unusually high 12GB of RAM. It also seems to suggest sticking with Windows 10, and Windows 11 is only listed among the recommended specs. Read more

Demeo's PC version is a cool TRPG hangout that probably won't get as many players as it deserves Posted: 15 Feb 2022 07:08 AM PST A couple of weeks back, I interviewed the creator of Left 4 Dead and general PC gaming multiplayer grandee Mike Booth about his VR tabletop game Demeo. In virtual reality, Demeo seeks to recreate the feeling of playing a TRPG strategy game, huddled around a table with three pals and a load of cheesey crisps. Soon, though, you won't need a headset to play it, as Demeo is also getting a standalone PC version. I got invited for a little hands-on of the PC build, and thought that since I am a tabletop-game-playing person, it'd be interesting to bring Ed along with me. Ed likes multiplayer PC games more than me, but in the kind of kill-streak, headshot, battle-royale way. Thus, as a team, we are perfectly poised to assess how Demeo stacks up as a co-op PC game. We played a single level in Demeo's first adventure module, The Black Sarcophagus, although when it launches in early access a complete game will stretch to three. Demeo will also have all the other adventures released for the VR version, including the most recent forest-set Roots Of Evil, but The Black Sarcophagus placed us in a creepy stone dungeon and/or crypt. The goal was to find the monster carrying the crypt key, remove the key by force, and then unlock door to the next level. Our team of four was completed by Tommy Palm, CEO and founder of Resolution games (and owner of a truly top-tier cardigan) and producer Gustav Stenmark (no cardigan visible sadly, but he seemed cool). Here's how we got on. Read more

Dune: Spice Wars gets back to basics with its compelling mix of 4X ambition and real-time strategy Posted: 15 Feb 2022 06:00 AM PST Easily one of the standout PC reveals from last year's Game Awards, Dune: Spice Wars is an upcoming real-time 4X strategy game about everyone's favourite doomed sand planet. Based on Frank Herbert's acclaimed novel and made by the same folks behind Northgard and Wartales, Dune: Spice Wars will see players step into the boots of one of four factions when it launches in early access later this spring, and I've had a chance to see how one of them works in action. In a hands-off presentation, developers Shiro Games showed us how the (sadly Chalamet-less) Atreides family will be going about their fight to control Arrakis' most coveted substance - the all-important spice melange - although players will also be able to choose from the shady Harkonnen clan at launch, plus two more unannounced factions that will be revealed in the coming weeks. There's a lot to take in, but if you've been waiting for a Dune game to succeed the 1992 RTS epic that was Dune II: Battle For Arrakis, well, you better pull your head out of the sand and strap on your hydro-cycling stillsuit. The battle for this year's best strategy game is about to get spicy. Read more

Terraria has yet another update coming, those filthy liars Posted: 15 Feb 2022 03:40 AM PST In May 2020, the makers of Terraria released its final major update, appropriately named Journey's End. Then they followed it up with the Journey's Actual End update a few months after that. Then a Don't Starve crossover update last year. They're filthy rotten liars, I'm saying, and what wonderful liars. They've now announced another upcoming update, named Labor Of Love after the Steam Award they won for their ongoing support. Fair does! Read more

Dear Esther is free to keep on Steam right now Posted: 14 Feb 2022 10:03 AM PST Ten years ago today, the commercial remake of Hebridean gloom simulator Dear Esther launched. But this year, we're the ones getting presents. The developers, The Chinese Room are giving Dear Esther away free on Steam for 48 hours. Grab it by Wednesday and it's yours for keepsies. All the gloom and guilt and that wonderful, wonderful lonely island are yours! Happy birthday, dear Dear Esther, happy birthday to you. Read more

GOG's new sale has 50% off Cyberpunk 2077 and 60% off Disco Elysium Posted: 14 Feb 2022 07:28 AM PST Video game sales are less of a novelty now that a giant sale is running on one store or another almost all the time but hey, this just means you can get cheap games almost all the time. This week, look to GOG for your game shopping, where their 'We Love Games' sale has over 3000 things going cheap. Discounts include 50% off Cyberpunk 2077, 60% off Disco Elysium, and 80% off The Witcher 3 GotY. Not bad! Read more

Total War: Warhammer 3 review: a heavyweight RTS with transformative changes to multiplayer Posted: 14 Feb 2022 07:00 AM PST Total War: Warhammer 3 is an extremely hard game to review in isolation. It’s utterly massive in itself, with eight hulking single player campaigns at launch, not to mention a greatly expanded range of multiplayer and PvE skirmish options. But that’s just the start of it. For indeed, just like beloved Warhammer villain Ebeneezer Scrooge, any attempt to form an opinion on this game has to contend not just with the present, but with the bedevilments of its past and future to boot. While it is very much a game you can buy and enjoy on its lonesome, TWW3 is perhaps better considered as the last, grand instalment of a game whose release began nearly eight years ago with Total War: Warhammer. It’s a genuinely epic construction; a proper Pillars-Of-The Earth-level feat of game development. And here’s where the future sticks the boot in. Because while the last stones of this electric cathedral have been lowered into place, the phone line to God hasn’t been wired in yet. Read more

Wordle too easy? Try solving four grids at once in Quordle Posted: 14 Feb 2022 06:09 AM PST By now, I'm sure you have your Wordle strats down pat. You solve the daily puzzle on the pot during your morning wee, and have posted your boast to the family WhatsApp group before you even wipe (another three-solve? yawn!). Friendo, what you need is Quordle. This Wordle variant makes you guess four words on four grids at the same time. That'll get you thinking again. Read more

Lost Ark broke CS:GO and Dota playercount records, despite a technically bumpy weekend Posted: 14 Feb 2022 04:38 AM PST Despite Friday's wonky launch, Lost Ark become the second-most-played game on Steam ever over the weekend. The free-to-play action-RPG hit 1.32 million peak concurrent players on Saturday, narrowly pushing it past the all-time peaks of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2. Well, 1.32m were in-game, but they might not have been playing. Server problems continued after launch with long queues for some. Publishers Amazon say they're working on it, including planning to create a whole new extra European server region. Read more

New stealth RPG Abermore has big Thief meets Dishonored vibes Posted: 14 Feb 2022 04:15 AM PST The studio behind 10 Second Ninja X have today announced a brand-new first-person stealth RPG called Abermore, a game in which you take on the role of a legendary thief and have 18 days to plan the heist of the century. It's coming to PC on March 29th, and judging by the mix of magic powers and shadow slinking I've seen from its trailer, it could be the ideal chaser for those craving another Arkane-esque immersive sim in their lives. Read more

Lost Ark gets a straight performance boost with DirectX 11, surprising no one Posted: 14 Feb 2022 03:55 AM PST Frankly I feel a bit odd writing a post that amounts to “14-year-old rendering tech works better than 20-year-old rendering tech”, but Lost Ark – 2022’s biggest surprise hit so far – has only recently come around to the benefits of DirectX 11. While it’s the default rendering option in the western version that launched last week, the original South Korean version went years with just DirectX 9 to its name, and the press build that I used for performance testing (and Ed is using for his review-in progress) remains locked to DX9. Despite the fact that, as I’ve confirmed from testing the release build as well, DX11 provides a tidy performance gain over its predecessor. Read more

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