PC

God of War Ragnarök initially looks like it has little trouble with squeezing itself into a Steam Deck. Yet like a flask of mead laced with Odin’s raven piss, the seemingly crisp treat of Ragnarök’s handheld performance masks a nasty blend of technical troubles and what is, essentially, an always-online requirement by stealth.

The post-apocalyptic wastelands of Rain World are stunning, brutal, and full of strange creatures that would like to eat your kittenish face. It’s a landscape of wonder and pain, and it’s about to get a little more wonderful and painful. The upcoming Watcher expansion, which adds new places to visit and a new type of

Me, I’m a simple sort. All I want from my flight simulators is an unerringly accurate recreation of dozens of aircraft, a perfect physics model that includes the spectacle of relevant weather events, and a complete, photorealistic and 1:1 scale depiction of the entire planet earth. You, you might be one of those fancy types,

Lethal Company was one of last year’s surprise horror hits. It was a brilliant dystopian scavenging sim in which you searched cellars for bolts while avoiding the attentions of creatures that hate being looked at, or which only move when they’re not being looked at, or which look like your friends, from a distance. The

Farm life sim snowclone My Time At X is getting a third entry. My Time At Evershine looks to feature more sowing, reaping, kissing and combat, similar to the previous games My Time At Portia and My Time At Sandrock, but with a new art style, campaign co-op and citybuilding elements. You’ll get a glimpse

What are you LYMBUS? In what vat were you grown? I feel like I’ve sluggishly ambled my way down to the fridge and tried to scoop a gherkin from the jar, only to find a disconcertingly tasty sliver of my own brain. Like a creature from Flatland trying to play 4D chess, and all the

Frostpunk 2 review:An atmospheric, bold attempt to reinvent its own society-moulding subgenre whose story and building features too often frustrate with too few options or distract with too many. Developer: 11 bit studios Publisher: 11 bit studios Release: September 20th 2024 On: Windows From: Steam, GOG, Epic, Humble Price: £38/€45/$45 Reviewed on: AMD Ryzen 5

I am sure gladiator roguelike RPG We Who Are About To Die’s latest update is very nice, and its accompanying 30% celebratory discount even nicer. You can find the full patch notes here, and I’d be interested to hear how significant they are from the more fascina-pilled among you. They mean nothing to me, however,

In theory, vampires and immersive sims go together as naturally as bats and caves. Immersive sims tend to involve a balance of stealth, acrobatics, raw strength and crafty manipulation, and vampires are celebrated for all of these things. Despite this, actual vampire-themed immersive sims are rare. My list starts with Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines… and

For all the nightmarish enshittification modern life throws at us, we can at least feel warm and fulfilled about the resurgence of demos. Bountifully they await on Steam, like a friendly worker offering you toothpick-skewered cheese chunks at your local supermarket. And, oh, would you look at that: this cheese has some guns in it.

Booked For The Week is our weekly chat with industry folk about the books they love, have loved, and are hoping to love in the future. Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week – our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books!

Back in June, Edwin covered One Million Checkboxes, a website with one million checkboxes that players could check or uncheck, with any change visible to all other visitors of the site. It became an obsession for some in the two weeks the website was online, as players fought to fill all the boxes, or undo

In V Rising, you’re a fledgling vampire on a mission to become absolute bossferatu of a Gothic open world. You get a Diablo-ish combat system, the ability to shapeshift into a spider, and a whole castle to prance around in, crooning at the moon. I like this premise almost as much as I dislike the

Released last year, Mosa Lina is a chaotic 2D platform puzzler full of bombs and frogs and spikeballs and tentacles, all subject to real-time physics. It’s an “aggressively random” response to what the developers call the “lock-and-key” philosophy of certain immersive sims. It’s also just been Major Updated, with new two player cooperative local and

After PowerWash Simulator’s jet to success, it was inevitable, really. Whitethorn Games and North Star Video Games have only come out with a rival: Spray Paint Simulator. In it, you get out your spray painter and “shshshshshs” different colours of paint onto various surfaces. For whatever reason, the universe this takes place in doesn’t seem

There’s no greater tool in video games than a grappling hook. 2022’s Grapple Dog knew that, making it the core ability of its platforming. The ability returns in sequel Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines, out today, although there’s now a second character to play as for those fools who favour shooting over hooking.

Earlier today, Nic covered the full release of Steam Families, a feature which makes it easier for families to share a game library and for parents to manage kids’ purchases and playtime on the digital storefront. It’s a neat improvement over the old system. Unfortunately I can’t think about anything other than the Steam Families

Post-apocalyptic roguelike Neo Scavenger is one of my favourite games, but its spacefaring followup Ostranauts, currently in Early Access, is currently too fiddly and complicated for me. Here’s some good news, then: Kitfox, masters of making impenetrable roguelikes more welcoming, have joined the project as publisher ahead of a planned 1.0 release in 2025.