Innehållsförteckning för October 2021 från Edge

OK, here’s a test. What were you doing 19 years ago? If the answer is ‘making plans to visit Game On, the first major UK exhibition to explore the vibrant history and culture of videogames’, then snap – us, too. If you were in a particularly honoured group, you may even remember the Edge party held at the event, where the likes of Steven Poole could be found mingling among a galaxy of games from across the ages. This Barbican exhibition felt important, staged with the kind of attention to detail you’d expect from such an organisation, displaying 125 playable games and exotic original hardware such as a DEC PDP-1 minicomputer alongside a sparkly yellow Computer Space cabinet. Yes, we thought at the time, finally videogames are getting the recognition…

Bernd Diemer will deliver a presentation on Improbable’s experiments with ScavLab at Develop: Brighton. After a digital incarnation last year, the event is making its physical return from Tuesday 26 to Thursday 28 October at the Brighton Hilton Metropole. Keynotes announced so far include Team17 CEO Debbie Bestwick and Insomniac Games founder and president Ted Price. Also on the schedule are presentations from Sega, Xbox, Arkane, Square Enix and Konami. Edge readers can get a ten per cent discount on tickets by using the code ‘CJSHYU’. For further info or to book, visit developconference.com.…

Boxing is home to the one-on-one: that primordial, binary drama promising either total victory or abject loss. It’s a setup that favours the underdog, allowing them to tip the established order with a single knockout – or, if they can keep up the momentum, set win ratios that would leave Call Of Duty players dumbstruck. It’s a model Steel City Interactive has followed as only a real boxing aficionado could. In less than two years, the fledgling Sheffield company has built a roster of top-level licenses that take several scrolls down its official site to appreciate in full. After a decade of boxing game drought, the biggest names in the sport have lent their endorsements and likenesses to the innocuously named eSports Boxing Club, making it impossible to ignore. And…

Theatre and videogames are two artforms that have traditionally held each other at arm’s length, but in recent years immersive theatre has been bringing them closer and closer together. Still, Jones says, it’s a spectrum. “There’s some immersive theatre where you’re very much the audience, and you’re watching it in an environment that is immersive” – think something akin to the surroundings of a Secret Cinema event – while other productions make you more of an active participant in the story. Isklander is very much at the latter end, with its narrative locked away behind a series of puzzles. Parcel it all up in a.exe rather than a web browser, sell it on Steam and there’d be no question of whether this is a game – if that even matters.…

“There’s currently a glass ceiling for women’s football and we want to do what we can to help smash through it. We believe in equality for all and we want to be part of the solution.” It may have taken 29 years, but Football Manager boss Miles Jacobson is stoked to include the women’s game “Extremely proud and humbled to be the first female cover athlete in the history of NBA 2K. I’m hopeful there will be many more badass females to follow.” Feels like Candace Parker could be onto something here “I really wish as an industry we’d come together to help preserve the history of what gaming is about, so we don’t lose the ability to go back.” Xbox’s Phil Spencer just won’t let Blinx: The Time Sweeper…

Camera angles are among the most important tools in a filmmaker’s arsenal. Perspective, framing and focus can have a powerful effect on the viewer’s emotions and perception of a scene. A game’s camera, on the other hand, is something that’s rarely discussed as a narrative device, or is simply taken for granted. That’s partly since the player often has a significant degree of control over it – and in turn on how the action is framed – with many games effectively encompassing a series of long, continuous ‘takes’. Yet during an online group Q&A about The Artful Escape with designer Johnny Galvatron, one journalist asked why he decided a side-scrolling platformer was the best way to present Francis Vendetti’s journey to discover his stage persona. “It’s just because the way…

You can choose Vendetti’s stage outfit but not before visiting Frida’s Closet, around the game’s midway point. “I felt there was so much to say about Francis and to learn who he was,” Galvatron says of this belated character customisation. “And to understand how difficult the change was going to be from what was expected for him, to have that emotional baggage when you change into this new persona.” Once there, you’re rather spoiled for choice: there are secondary and tertiary colour options for most items, with 11 types of sunglasses, eight guitar designs (including obvious Les Paul and Stratocaster analogues), and nearly 20 different hairstyles. You can lean into grunge, cowboy and punk aesthetics, mix and match, or adopt a more genderfluid Bowie-like persona. There’s even an Elton John-style…

Developer WolfEye Studios Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC Origin Various Release Autumn GALLERY VIDEO Raphaël Colantonio knows a thing or two about the peculiar magic of immersive sims. As the founder of Arkane, he’s responsible for some of the best examples of the form ever made. After leaving to found WolfEye Studios, his priorities really haven’t changed much: “Our mission is to go deeper into immersive sims. That’s our passion – it always has been and probably always will be.” Before our demo of Weird West, WolfEye’s debut, Colantonio gives a brief presentation on what he refers to as a “design religion”. He talks about the importance of making a world that is “bigger than the game”, of leaving room for player expression, and of systems that interlock to create…

After digitally recreating New York in The Division, Sharkmob co-founder Martin Hultberg tells us there was one major lesson for the making of Bloodhunt’s map: “Do not try and build whatever city you’re being inspired by.” The team decamped to Prague for a couple of week-long trips during development, but Hultberg isn’t too concerned with precise accuracy. “It’s not about reproducing it one-to-one, it’s more a feeling that you’re after.” The key tourist landmarks have been realised in high fidelity, but more liberty has been taken with the connecting streets and, especially, the spots beyond the reach of most human visitors. “When you go up on the rooftops, it’s this complete new world,” he says. “One that belongs to the vampires.”…

Developer/ publisher 2pt Interactive Format PC, PS4, PS5 Origin Australia Release Q4 GALLERY VIDEO Aboard this space station, taking even one small step is far from easy. There’s no gravity, after all, leaving your character bobbing uselessly in their orange spacesuit. To reach the next room, you need to steer each arm independently using the thumbsticks, grab hold of something solid with the triggers, then pull and release to launch yourself forward. In theory, anyway. More often than not, you will be rewarded instead with the sound of your helmet clonking softly against the doorframe, or the sight of your entire body crumpling into a wall. “A slapstick space sim” is how lead programmer Alexander Perrin describes Heavenly Bodies. “You’re given this cosmonaut who has been training ten years for…

Among the things Team WIBY is hoping to add over the coming months (a greater variety of early traps, rotating rooms, a new trap type designed specifically for whip experts in the fourth area), Marrinan is keen to have more phantoms present, and for them to dwindle steadily in number so you eventually find yourself in uncharted territory. “I think the best games happen inside your mind,” he says. “And I wanted that whole idea of only one person can beat this or do this to be [at the forefront].” He says it’s been intriguing watching skilled players fail at the simplest hurdles. “It’s not about technical ability, but more from psyching themselves out. Where you know you can nail this jump, but you stuff it up because the pressure…

Some quest-givers you meet play a larger role in Sable’s story, but many of the machinists – the engineers of this world, who rebuild and recycle found equipment – represent one-off encounters. Theirs is one of the more familiar masks, Kythreotis says, “because the technology that people are repurposing is so important to the way they live.” There is an unusually deep relationship between people and tech here, we note. “It’s hard to know if this will come through, but the technology isn’t something that is infinite on this world,” Kythreotis explains. “They’re finding these old scrap ships around the place, and they have to make use of what they have. And because this technology comes from another era to what they’re familiar with, the cultural understanding and the cultural…

Game director, Manifold Garden How would you describe the visual style of the game? We’re very, very proud of the edgework that Arthur did – they’re very clean lines. It’s a minimalist art style with very refined details. We don’t have textures, it’s very constrained – there’s no spheres, there aren’t curved surfaces – but I think it looks good because all of the elements that are there are very polished. Were you concerned about people waiting for the game to be released? There was definitely a bit of a concern. A lot of press websites would do the games they were most excited for next year: we were on one for 2015, then we were on another for 2016 [and 2017]. After that, people were like: ‘This game’s not…

Urban spaces in the early days of videogames were often represented in abstract ways. Think of Missile Command’s cities – little more than clusters of pixels to be protected from obliteration – or the isometric, Escher-inspired assemblies of blocks in Ant Attack. These days, creators have the technology to render them in staggering detail, but we’ve encountered few games that can match the arcology of The Ascent (p110) – which is why it’s all the more remarkable that it’s been built by just a dozen people. Fidelity isn’t everything, of course: a city is defined as much by its inhabitants, and those in Neon Giant’s cyberpunk world aren’t too friendly. Then again, none of them is quite as objectionable as Last Stop’s (p116) Meena, an unrepentant liar who, thanks to…

Developer/publisher DigixArt Format PC (tested), Switch Release August 16 VIDEO GALLERY The brevity of scenes means it’s possible to have a complete adventure within the space of an hour The journey, not the destination. That’s what a good road trip is supposed to be about, isn’t it? But while DigixArt’s game has plenty of tales to tell along the way, it has its eye firmly on the end of the road. The multiple trips you take across Petria are always headed for the same terminus: the country’s northern border. It seems that the entire teenaged population of Petria has had the same idea. As you travel, you meet a selection of itinerant under-20s, all of them headed north. You play as a few of them, too. At the beginning of…

No Ace Attorney is complete without its prosecutor, and in Barok van Zieks – the Reaper of the Old Bailey – Great Ace Attorney hits a sweet spot missing since Edgeworth and Godot. He’s almost a hybrid of the two, his cravat and contempt channelling the snarl of the former, while the latter’s coffee-swilling ruminations echo in Van Zieks’ love of a good wine – and tortured metaphors about vintages to go with it. His xenophobia towards Naruhodo threatens to turn the banter ugly, but it also makes his losses all the more satisfying and sets him up for a stronger journey in the second game. As is tradition, the ancestor of hapless Winston Payne also puts in his obligatory tutorial appearance, setting in motion the feud that will send…

Developer Acid Nerve Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC (tested), Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now VIDEO GALLERY This is a distinctive twist on an established formula, and a remarkable accomplishment for a small team Acid Nerve’s debut, Titan Souls, felt like an exercise in how far you can streamline a game. Born from a game jam, this stripped-back boss rush – in which both you and your colossal opponents had 1HP – was an unconventional idea that worked on paper but struggled to sustain a full game. Its followup is almost the polar opposite. Built on more formulaic foundations, Death’s Door feels like a game that started small and just kept getting bigger, wider, deeper – and better. It appears from the outset to be a compact, isometric Zelda-like,…

A completed campaign is by no means an exhausted one. Returning to the same scenario with different personalities can be endlessly entertaining. Alternatively, you can fiddle with the difficulty settings and change the tone of your adventure – it can be anything from a bedtime story to a grim survivalist epic with a body count to match. There’s also a multiplayer mode, in which each player has control of certain choices, and a straightforward no-story campaign where you can wander around and pick fights without having an overarching goal. This is handy if you want to level up a legacy character – though the game only lets you pick one hero to level up per campaign. The choice can be agonising.…

Developer Dreams Uncorporated, SYCK Publisher Modus Games Format PC, PS4, PS5 (tested), Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now VIDEO From estranged families to deadly disease, every town has its own problem necessitating different solutions As the J in JRPG suggests, this is a genre we primarily associate with Japanese developers, at which few western studios have tried their hand. Cris Tales is one of the rare exceptions, proudly calling itself a “gorgeous indie love letter to classic JRPGs”. It certainly is attractive – from the unique character design to the architecture referencing developer Dreams Uncorporated’s Colombian roots, Cris Tales is a joy to look at. Sadly, it isn’t even half as much fun to play. The potential is there. Instead of staunchly copying age-old turn-based systems, the…

One of the aims for Rearmed was no doubt to serve as an appetiser for Grin’s full-size 3D Bionic Commando a year later, a game which contributed to the studio’s closure. While the followup isn’t a disaster – the arm is given plenty to do, with Spider-Man-like traversal implemented well enough – it remains an ill-advised departure that dragged Rad Spencer into the swamp of drab 360-era action games. Its ‘oorah’ attitude, green-grey palette and po-faced storyline about nuclear terrorists feel incongruous for a franchise synonymous with colourful uniforms and cartoon violence. Despite its own failings, then, Rearmed is still the definitive Bionic Commando experience, and its retro stylings feel far less dated in 2021.…

Everywhere you look, there are players. Thousands of them, pressed so thickly that they seem to move as one, all the jostling and jumping translating into the tides of some single fluid entity. Towering overhead are a pair of colossal avatars, decked out in neon. They chat jovially with the crowd – then, laughing, one of them throws out an enormous gust of wind, blowing the players away in a dense cloud. These community events have brought together an unprecedented number of players – 1,800 of them in the initial closed event, over 4,000 in the first that was open to the public – in a single realtime, fully 3D environment. Improbable, the technology company behind it all, reckons it can manage 15,000. Big numbers indeed. The technology that makes…

Getty Images: Jam Media Discounting Sumo Digital, Sheffield isn’t well known for game development. It is, however, a hub of boxing talent. The first fighter Steel City signed was Ryan Rhodes (above), the former super welterweight title holder who trained at the same Sheffield gym as four world champions: Kell Brook, Junior Witter, Johnny Nelson and ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed.“This is kind of personal for us, growing up around all the stars,” Habib says. “Johnny Nelson is involved. A huge supporter of the game. He’s been incredible in terms of his feedback and input.” Habib and his co-founders plan to support local gyms. “For us, as fans,” he says, “it’s almost a thank you.”…

Plymouth Point and The Mermaid’s Tongue are designed to stand alone; The Kindling Hour opens with a ‘previously on’ recap. Still, we’d advise playing them in the order of release – not only to preserve the twists and turns of the story, but to see how Swamp Motel’s ambitions have grown with time. The first instalment is most reliant on pre-existing websites, giving it a more grounded feel. Increasingly, though, the series layers in more bespoke technology and non-diegetic puzzles, and there’s a change of tone as it ramps up towards the trilogy’s finale, which Jones refers to as “a bit more Hollywood.”…

Game King Kong Of Skull Island Manufacturer Raw Thrills If touching things that have been handled by others has made you a bit twitchy over the past 18 months, spare a thought for arcade operators. And then dig a little deeper for the specific part of the industry creating VR-based attractions, asking prospective players to pick up and wear headsets. One such company is Raw Thrills, whose first VR game, King Kong Of Skull Island, addresses players’ concerns head on by including a facemask dispenser within the cabinet. Simply plop one on your face, creating a barrier between you and the headset, and off you go. Supporting two participants sitting side by side, the game plays out on rails, with preordained routes throwing up an assortment of creatures which can…

The citizens of Czechia should be happy that I, their leader, have guided them through the COVID-19 pandemic to the summer of this year with only 224 people having died from the virus. But strangely they are not. Sure, I spent more than the nation’s entire GDP on supporting the economy through my extremely draconian lockdown programme, but so what? It’s really not fair. Now that most of my people are vaccinated, they’re going to kick me out of office. This is a simple yet somehow terrifying web-based sim called The Corona Game. At the end of it you can see a scatter plot of how others have performed, with axes for death toll and total spending. Turns out some people managed to spend even more than I did and…

Psychonauts 2 PC, Xbox One/Series Would it even be Psychonauts without having to wait a little longer than expected? Alas, this arrived just too late to review before its August 25 launch. Still, early impressions are extremely promising, and barring some sort of 11th-hour disaster, we’ll bring you the Edge verdict next month. Starfield PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series While not much has been revealed about it, Bethesda’s first new universe in 25 years is a tempting thing in itself. Todd Howard’s called it “Skyrim in space”, but we’re hoping this futuristic open world will be something new – we’ve got enough versions of Skyrim now, really. Company Of Heroes 3 PC Back after almost a decade away, Relic’s strategy series is taking a trip to the Mediterranean. There’s an…

Moving to a smaller budget and team – WolfEye currently consists of 25 staff, the majority of them Arkane veterans – has meant stepping away from the modern firstperson trappings of the games Colantonio is known for. He’s open about the fact that the visual style – inspired by “old French comic books” – was chosen for pragmatic reasons, something that wouldn’t “take 200 people to make”. On a game design level, though, he doesn’t seem concerned about losing anything in translation. “Immersive sim is more than a genre,” Colantonio says. “It’s more like a set of values.” Not having to render every scenario at high fidelity, in fact, might have allowed WolfEye to push those values further. Colantonio says the game is “very open-ended… much more than anything we’ve…

Developer Ska Studios Publisher Devoured Studios Format PS4, PS5 Origin US Release 2022 GALLERY VIDEO As a condemned criminal, the protagonist of Ska Studios’ followup to 2016’s Salt And Sanctuary faces an unpleasant choice: death, or a life of servitude spent hunting colossal monsters called Mages to rid the world of their malicious presence. When you see these hideous beasts – and despite his self-effacing comments about his artistic ability, this is no slight on creator James Silva’s creature designs – you wonder if our antihero might wish they’d taken the first option. Sacrifice’s predecessor was Silva’s biggest hit to date, a 2D Soulslike with elements of Castlevania and a combat system built around his earlier Dishwasher games. This sequel adds a helping of Monster Hunter to the mix: facing…

Loneliness in space is well documented, but you needn’t suffer it here. Heavenly Bodies offers a twoplayer mode – we hesitate to call it ‘co-op’, because actual cooperation is hard to come by when you’re both clumsy space cadets. “As soon as you pair up with someone else, like so many local multiplayer things, it turns into a brawler,” Perrin says. Suddenly you’re not just grabbing onto the station’s walls for support but each other’s limbs, trying to squeeze through narrow spaces like twin corks in a single bottle, following the suggestion of a floating pair of rackets and attempting a game of gravity-free tennis for two. The solo game might not necessarily be a comedy, but playing with a friend in the room is a very different story.…

Japanese Breakfast’s live performance of Glider at Summer Game Fest put Sable on a lot of people’s radars, no doubt contributing to the success of the demo – which was being put together as arrangements for the performance were being made. Kythreotis says Shedworks “can’t claim too much credit” for it, insisting it was all down to Raw Fury (which handled the editing of the footage he and Fineberg had supplied for the event), Game Fest linchpin Geoff Keighley, and, especially, Zauner. “We gave input and tried to provide guidance for the visuals and the atmosphere. But again, that’s another thing that Michelle just has so much experience in that we could defer a lot to her. And, yeah, the performance was just magical. You know, it’s all her. And…

Alexis Ong Alexis Ong Marina Bay Sands Virtual Realms is an exhibition with its eye firmly on the future, designed to build on the Barbican’s first foray into videogames, 2002’s Game On. “[That was] a historical show, looking back at videogames, and we wanted to do something that instead looked forward, and looked to celebrate how videogames have developed and changed over the last few years, how they speak to so many different audiences,” explains Barbican associate curator and Virtual Realms co-curator Patrick Moran. “The types of interactions and engagements they have with their audiences are so diverse now and so sophisticated, so we really wanted to celebrate videogame creativity in a very new way.” But as a physical event originally set to open its doors in 2020, the exhibition…

You might expect a studio’s longevity to be marked like the rings of a tree, something that can be traced through to its size and growth. But that’s certainly not the case for Nihon Falcom. The oldest RPG developer in Japan, currently celebrating its 40th anniversary, it’s also one of the smallest, with a headcount that has remained firmly in the double digits. As a Japanese developer that has stuck to its native territory for the majority of its lifespan, its games aren’t household names like Final Fantasy, Persona or even Dragon Quest. Far from a disadvantage, though, the company’s president, Toshihiro Kondo, views this as a strength. “The fact that we do everything, from game development to music and video production to package design and marketing, all in-house helps…

Developer Square Enix, HAND Publisher Square Enix, Format PC, PS4 (tested), Switch Release Out now VIDEO GALLERY It makes combat more engaging than in action RPGs that are all too happy to leave it to the AI We admit that stepping back onto Shibuya’s iconic scramble crossing is underwhelming at first. Given the presentational shift from 2D to 3D, you might reasonably assume you could roam Tokyo’s hippest district with a greater level of freedom, without fixed cameras or loading screens. But then as a followup to one of the most innovative JRPGs in recent generations, doing the expected isn’t really Neo: The World Ends With You’s style. Instead, developers Square Enix and HAND employ both 2D and 3D elements to ensure the unique look and feel from TWEWY’s 2007…

Reaching the end of your final journey, you’re unlikely to have seen everything Road 96 has to offer – something the game flags up on its loading screens, with completion percentages for each character. There is a New Game Plus option but it’s hard to recommend going back. While the underlying algorithm might give preferential treatment to scenes you’ve not experienced before, you’ll still see a lot of familiar ones. The vignettes don’t hold up well to repetition, a problem that’s not mitigated by the mild randomisation in their particulars. It doesn’t matter if the world outside your windscreen is now dark and stormy, rather than sun-baked – you’re still playing through the same story beats. No, better to think of the missed parts as someone else’s tale. You can’t…

Developer Neon Giant Publisher Curve Digital Format PC (tested), Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now VIDEO GALLERY Enemy tactics are rarely particularly smart; rather, they’ll overwhelm you with numbers An arcology is an imagined ideal: a structure designed to sustain human life while reducing environmental impact. The one on Veles, however, is no utopia. Most of the people who’ve made their way to the planet have secured their passage by signing on as indentured labourers for corporations. These ‘indents’ start off at the base of the city, in a place called Deepstink (a name even David Cage might reject for being a little on-the-nose). Yet from the grubby floors and cluttered gantries of the lower reaches to the Mirror’s Edge-like sheen of the Pinnacle above the clouds, this is…

Death’s Door has a knack of turning our corvid protagonist into something of a magpie. It regularly positions small items with a subtle shimmer to catch the eye – they’re usually beyond easy reach, and we find ourselves plotting how to get to them rather than focusing on the task at foot. Some are simply trinkets whose descriptions shed light on the world’s minor mysteries: return to the Reaper Commission and you’ll find them cluttering up the area around your desk. Others are weapons, of which there are five in all. These alternatives, including a pair of daggers and a heavy hammer, have a slight but noticeable effect on your attack speed and damage – just enough to throw you off your rhythm the first few times you use them.…

Developer Variable State Publisher Annapurna Interactive Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now VIDEO GALLERY Approached with a soapopera mindset, Last Stop comes into focus. Like all good TV, its pleasures are cumulative Plenty of games have marketed themselves as ‘cinematic’ over the years, but a game that aspires to be televisual? That’s a novelty. Although television might not be quite the right word when discussing this anthology from Virginia dev Variable State. No, this is telly, of the ‘settle into your sofa groove and make a cup of tea during the break’ variety. It’s an approach that runs right through Last Stop, but is most immediately obvious in its structure. After a short, tantalising intro – introducing a glowing green door in the…

Cris Tales’ bright colours and fantastical elements make it easy to think its locations are entirely fictional. However, they are really an ode to some of Colombia’s most spectacular architecture. Art director Sebastian Villarreal and CEO Carlos Rocha Silva, both Colombian natives, have erected a monument to their homeland’s sights and culture in everything from environments to characters’ clothes and weapon design. Even the game’s name isn’t just a pun of questionable quality – it actually refers to the Caño Cristales, a river that can turn five different colours thanks to the plants that grow at its bed. In the game, it’s referenced as the Rainbow River, which stores magical water in its different pools and offers a glimpse into the future.…

Among the design possibilities opened up by this volume of players, Diemer says, is a kind of teamwork rarely experienced in multiplayer games. “Working together, being able to achieve things in groups that you couldn’t achieve on your own, which is very different from traditional multiplayer games where the teams tend to be rather small and where, most of the time, it’s more about your personal status – how good you are.” This is more than just a case of removing end-of-match scoreboards, which would make for rather dull reading with a few thousand players featured – Improbable needs to make sure that each player can tell what they have contributed to the larger effort. It’s a tall order, and Diemer makes no pretence of having found the answers yet.…

It would be easy to look at the disappointed response to the OLED Switch model and the comparatively rapturous reception that greeted Steam Deck and assume that Nintendo is in trouble. Yet while Steam Deck’s form factor has clearly been inspired by Switch, the two devices are aimed at very different markets. Outside of dedicated hobbyist circles, where there is some audience crossover, Nintendo’s relatively underpowered hardware simply isn’t a concern for most of its vast installed base. And even those threatening to make the switch, you sense, will miss those firstparty titles that make Nintendo’s device so appealing to the masses. Having the whole of your Steam library available at any time is an attractive prospect, but until such time as Steam Deck can play Breath Of The Wild…

Away from home, I have been playing Super Mario World with my son online. I’ve also been giving a lot of Zoom talks. These activities synaptically sparked off each other when after one talk I was asked to explain a throwaway line. I had justified my games’ lack of interest in traditional game narrative frameworks and stated that players ‘are more interested in the why than the what if?’ Whereas most games tout their possibility spaces – the way in which their narratives might open up at the player’s touch – I felt that a good narrative benefited from an inward, not outward, focus. Being fully immersed in Super Mario World, I defended my thought by suggesting that we should approach Story Games in the same way we do Jumping…

Developer Beethoven & Dinosaur Publisher Annapurna Interactive Format PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series Origin Australia Release September 9 GALLERY VIDEO On the face of things, Francis Vendetti has a lot going for him. He’s a slim, well-dressed, good-looking folk musician, who lives in a particularly picturesque part of Colorado. Yet he’s been cursed to live in the shadow of a famous relative: his uncle Johnson was a hugely successful Dylan-style troubadour. From the very opening shot of a gig poster on a redwood trunk, bearing the legend ‘Nephew Of Johnson Vendetti’, his future path seems set. Even the pause menu is an image of one of Johnson’s albums on vinyl (complete with detailed sleeve notes). Sean Lennon and James McCartney, look away now. Yet, after you are invited to press…

The literal poster boy for Far Cry 6 is Giancarlo Esposito, the Breaking Bad and Mandalorian actor portraying the game’s villain, Antón Castillo. Not that Esposito necessarily sees it that way, as he made clear in his dictator-touting Summer Games Show interview with Geoff Keighley. “What’s most important is always what makes an antagonist compelling,” Khavari says. “How do they charm us into believing, right or wrong, that their ideas might have a twisted logic behind them?” In the case of Castillo, apparently, the key is that he’s not just a dictator but also “a father who wants what’s best for his son”. Khavari avoids the v-word when describing the character – it seems Esposito isn’t the only one with sympathy for this particular dictatorial devil.…

Developer/publisher Sharkmob Format PC Origin Sweden Release TBA 2021 GALLERY VIDEO Zombies clearly have the edge over their undead cousins, at least when it comes to sheer numbers, but their ubiquity in videogames has served to underline one thing: they’re not much fun to play as. That’s not the case with vampires, who are effectively the player power fantasy incarnate. That fantasy is right at the heart of this bloodsucking battle royale, obvious from the first time we make an impossible leap between the rooftops of Prague. You can scramble freely up the side of buildings, send clouds of bats to detect rival vampires, close the gap in a burst of invisibility, even dispatch them with a shotgun blast to the chest. Ah. That last one sticks out a little,…

Silva says the idea of the Mage hunt was conceived before Salt And Sanctuary’s release, back when he envisaged the first game featuring procedurally generated towers where these enemies would reside, before shifting tack to handcrafted levels. Sacrifice is also hand-designed, “but it definitely goes back to just wanting to tell that story of the Mage hunt.” The story has evolved, he says. “Originally, it was way too wholesome, which just didn’t fit the grimdark [mood].” The challenge was ensuring the narrative details of both games lined up. “It’s like the George RR Martin problem, where having to match all the lore with the previous books became an exponentially more difficult problem for him,” Silva laughs.…

Developer Team WIBY Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC Origin Australia Release TBA GALLERY VIDEO Ben Marrinan was confident he’d hit upon a good idea when he came up with the concept behind Phantom Abyss in 2018.The success of its early access incarnation, then, cannot have been too great a shock. Yet watching players has proved a fascinating insight into human behaviour for Marrinan and his fellow developers at Brisbane-based Team WIBY. Tasked with hunting down a relic inside a procedurally generated temple, you’re usually accompanied by the phantoms of the explorers who went before you, and who died trying to retrieve the prize. Yet the instinct of most people when faced with these spirits sprinting off into the distance – despite knowing they all failed – is to run immediately…

Game Sable Developer Shedworks Publisher Raw Fury Format PC, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release September 23 GALLERY VIDEO A Moebius-drawn Tatooine” is how we described Shedworks’ beautiful debut – an open-world coming-of-age tale about simultaneously discovering a world and yourself – in E361. Right universe, wrong planet: “The very first inkling of an idea was from the first five minutes of The Force Awakens, where Rey is on Jakku,” creative director Gregorios Kythreotis tells us. That sequence prompted a thought: “What if you lived there? What would that be like, with these monumental ships and ruins and you’re just surviving?” Kythreotis and co-founder/programmer Daniel Fineberg began to imagine a hero who “wasn’t anything special” (this was, of course, before The Rise Of Skywalker retconned Rey’s lineage). As the title…

Given the Team Ico and Breath Of The Wild comparisons, Sable may be a little talkier than you’re expecting – though, as 80 Days writer Meghna Jayanth is behind the script, that’s no bad thing. The focus on player freedom means you’re not forced to engage with the storytelling (Kythreotis admits that two designer friends he showed the game to skipped a lot of the dialogue), but he’s hoping that most players will pay attention to what’s going on; indeed, the early exchanges will probably leave you with mixed emotions about Sable’s Gliding. “The Persona and Final Fantasy games are really good touchstones for us,” he says. “If I think back on my favourite JRPGs [such as] Final Fantasy IX, a lot of the worldbuilding comes from just talking to…

Format iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series, Xbox One Developer/publisher William Chyr Studio Origin US Release 2019 Falling in Manifold Garden is a disarmingly meditative experience. As the wind whistles by, you see the very same roof you leapt from rushing back upwards to meet you. Look left, look right: see the level repeat itself infinitely, a dizzying vision of eternity floating in a starless void. You’re safe here, free to continue your descent in a smooth, continuous loop. It’s an astonishing effect, one that never fails to delight for the entirety of this firstperson puzzler, and it’s all the more impressive when you consider that it is game director William Chyr’s first videogame. However, the moment was a long time coming – seven years, to be exact. After…

STILL PLAYING Streets Of Rage 4 PC The game that proved there’s life in the scrolling brawler yet gets a paid expansion that makes it even more essential. The highlight of the Mr X Nightmare DLC is a Survival mode that charges you with battling increasingly challenging waves of enemies, picking up bonuses between rounds that transform the way you play. By the time you hit level ten, you might have weapons that leave toxic pools, electrically charged punches and multiple jumps – letting you cross the arena without ever touching down.Gloriously daft, and all the better for it. The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD Switch This enhanced remaster is arguably the quintessential entry for those who love Zelda’s puzzles more than anything else: several of its dungeons are…

Despite featuring many faceless NPCs, Neo still contains a sizeable cast of distinct characters who you’ll find with their individual node on a huge social network. Get to know more people in Shibuya through the story and sidequests (including the many shop and restaurant staffers) and you’ll gain friendship points that you can spend on each node to unlock various items and perks. While it takes some gall to lock basic conveniences such as being able to see your enemy HP or simply vault a knee-high fence behind this system, it nonetheless feeds into Neo’s theme of connections and how everyone – even in the shops whose wares might not be to your tastes – has a part to play.…

Developer/publisher Capcom Format PC, PS4, Switch (tested) Release Out now VIDEO GALLERY You slide the camera around 3D dioramas to highlight hidden evidence and pursue the reality of the situation Given the tradition of Sherlock Holmes parodies – everyone from AA Milne to John Lennon has had a go – it was inevitable that gaming’s preeminent crime writer, Shu Takumi, would one day slip on the deerstalker. In the Ace Attorney series, which he created in 2001 and has orbited ever since, he leaned on the deductive reasoning of orthodox detective fiction, albeit wrapped in a manic energy that saw witnesses possessed and a parrot put on the stand. The question, then, is what happens when the inspired collides with the inspiration? Is this Sherlock Holmes in an Ace Attorney…

The Ascent’s loot game is disappointing for the most part, since there’s little that’s truly transformative in terms of guns and gear (the augs are another story). It pays to pocket everything you find – although it’s too easy to accidentally put on flimsier gear or equip a weaker weapon by holding the button for a split-second too long. Either way, you’re forced to dip into the menu regularly to reorganise your loadout, not least with certain enemies weak or resistant to specific damage types and no way to quickly switch between gear sets. That said, it’s good to see aesthetic choices represented in cutscenes; on our way back from some missions we find ourselves donning ever more outlandish get-ups to enliven these tetchy exchanges.…

Developer/publisher Worldwalker Games Format PC Release Out now VIDEO GALLERY The kind of game that knows what you want before you do, and gives you what you never knew you needed besides Sit down, wherever you are. Find a spot beside a campfire, around a space heater or on the 15-year old futon in your friend’s dad’s basement, and get comfortable. It’s time for a story. Worldwalker Games’ debut bears few of the hallmarks of an overnight success: no jaw-slackening visuals, no Twitch-friendly multiplayer mode, no attractive protagonists. The elevator pitch is fine, if hardly likely to set hearts aflame: a story-led tactical RPG based on Dungeons & Dragons. OK, so what else? Well, plenty, as it turns out. Wildermyth is remarkable: it’s the product of a thousand smart decisions,…

Like Virginia, Variable State’s debut, Last Stop is keen on the cuts. Where sharp editing was a strength of the former game, though, here it can be something of a liability. Walking between locations, you’ll jump suddenly from one handsomely framed camera angle to another – the game is especially fond of wide shots, which do an excellent job of showing off its locales. This can, however, create confusion, especially in tandem with the tank controls. Worse, in scenes where movement control is wrested away, the cuts occasionally feel like they’re coming a beat too early or late, hurting the sense of continuity between shots. It’s often said of film that we don’t notice editing unless it’s been done badly. Unfortunately, we spend too much time here noticing the editing.…