Helldivers 2’s battle for Super Earth makes Chinese news following the successful and slightly review bomby defense of Equality-On-Sea That’s one way to congratulate players on their big win Image credit:Arrowhead The battle for Super Earth that kicked off with Helldivers 2 ’s Heart of Democracy update concluded last week, with players managing to fend off an Illuminate invasion of their home planet. One of the two cities that ended up holding out against the hostile squids was Equality-On-Sea, located in the in-game map’s version of China, and it’s led the shooter to make a local news report in the country....

How the checklist conquered the open world, from Morrowind to Skyrim The first in a new interview series about a sprawling, exhausting genre Image credit:Microsoft There’s no genre like the open world for inducing choice paralysis, so it’s fitting that I’ve been agonising over how to begin this irregular article series on open world games for months. I have a lot of material, oodles of interviews with developers of all shapes and sizes - big shops like Remedy and CD Projekt, smaller studios like Ace Team and Awaceb, all holding forth on such topics as whether Elden Ring or Zelda did bandit camps better, and how you make a forest feel endless....

How to craft a Workbench in Grounded 2 How to get ready to make weapons and armour Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Xbox Game Studios Wondering how to craft a Workbench in Grounded 2? Having a Workbench is required to help you build weapons and armour, and absolutely vital in improving your offensive and defensive capabilities as you start to explore the park. Putting together a Workbench is also a secret step for Grounded 2 ’s ‘Craft: Clover Hood’ story quest, and is a good early example of using a blueprint - so here are the exact steps required to get a Workbench up and running....

How to fix Ruined Tool and get Silkshot in Hollow Knight Silksong Here’s what to do with the Ruined Tool Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Team Cherry Wondering what to do with the Ruined Tool in Hollow Knight: Silksong? One of the more cryptic items you can acquire in Hollow Knight: Silksong is the Ruined Tool, which has little description beyond the fact that it’ll take a skilled craftsbug to repair it. This humble bit of scrap is necessary for building the Silkshot - the Hollow Knight equivalent of a gun....

How to get Ancient Technology and Ancient Civilization Parts in Palworld Here’s how to get Ancient Technology and Ancient Civilization Parts in Palworld Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Pocketpair Wondering how to unlock Ancient Technology in Palworld? Ancient Technology Points are a way to get your hands on Ancient crafting recipes in Palworld . These recipes are for things like the Egg Incubator , Grappling Gun , Sphere Launcher and more quality-of-life items....

How to get Blade of Mercy in Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree Here is where to get the Talisman that raises critical attacks in the Elden Ring DLC Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco Wondering where to get the Blade Of Mercy in Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree? Despite its name, the Blade Of Mercy in Shadow Of The Erdtree is actually one of over 30 new Talismans to join the Elden Ring roster....

How to get the Lantern in Elden Ring How to light your path in Elden Ring without needing a torch Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco Looking for the Lantern in Elden Ring? As you’ll quickly discover the moment you enter any of the 100+ dark and dingy caves in Elden Ring (soon to be even more when Shadow Of The Erdtree releases), you’d best have a way of lighting your surroundings....

How to open the Liberty Falls vault in Black Ops 6 Zombies Here’s how to crack open the vault in Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Activision Want to open the vault in the Liberty Falls map in Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies? The Liberty Falls map in Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode has a good array of loot inside, but in order to crack it open, you’ll first need to find three codes hidden in different locations across the map....

Hytale release time and date, and how to download Hytale Launcher Find out when Hytale releases in your region Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Hypixel Studios Wondering when exactly Hytale releases in your region? We’ve all been hearing whispers of Hytale for near on a decade now, and for a while it seemed likely that the game would fall into the depths of development hell and never return. But against the odds, the time is nearly upon us: Hytale will launch into early access in less than 24 hours!...

I set a bishop on fire in Norland and the sicko loved every second of it Just a little sin Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse I am burning the Bishop while he sleeps. I’d say it’s nothing personal, but quite a lot in medieval management sim Norland is personal. He shouldn’t have slept with the Queen’s sister, for example. He shouldn’t have insisted his lover subsequently pay him for a confession to absolve herself of the guilt accrued from sleeping with him....

I’m not sure if FPS The Explorator is real or I just fell asleep watching Adult Swim, but I’m already in love (It’s definitely real - there’s a free demo on Steam) Image credit:Remnant games studio Old-school FPS adventure The Explorator contains much more intense shooty violence than the adorable lizardy folk that populate it might immediately suggest. I really want to use the word ‘zany’ without irony here to describe its hand-drawn 2D style and animations, but I’m afraid that ship has long since sailed into the sun....

In Dante’s Ring, you are a firefighter wrestling with your inner demons while sledding down a volcano A “disaster combat” game from the creators of The Invincible Image credit:Starward Industries I have one urgent request for Starward Industries, creators of the just-announced “anti-combat” survival RPG Dante’s Ring – don’t use the phrase “ring of fire” in your English marketing materials. I get that you’re going for a cocktail of Divina Commedia and FromSoftware associations, but you have to remember that this is the internet and we’re all desperately crude....

Is Nine Sols currently hiding an entirely new game within itself? Yes, but I don’t know why yet Red Candle Games embracing their roots Image credit:RedCandleGames Remember last month when Nine Sols developer Red Candle Games started teasing… something … related to the Metroidvania ? That something leaned much more into the studio’s horror origins, and as it turns out has developed into a whole entire ARG. I won’t dive into every last detail of said ARG, you can go down that rabbit hole yourself....

Is This Seat Taken? I hope not, because the sitting-themed logic puzzler is out now Now’s your chance to remember not to sit a big hat guy directly in front of anyone Image credit:Poti Poti Studio Oh, hello there, Is This Seat Taken? The logic puzzler with a name that’s real awkward to stick midway through a sentence has surprise-released today, August 7th, right off the back of an appearance in a Nintendo Indie World showcase....

Latest Blade Ball codes: Free Spins and Coins Redeem these Blade Ball codes for free Coins and free Spins Image credit:Roblox Looking for the latest Blade Ball codes? Blade Ball is a game of cat and mouse in Roblox , but the cat is a ball that flies through the air chasing you. And, as the name suggests, you have a blade that you can use to deflect the ball towards other players....

Little Rocket Lab is a Factorio and Stardew Valley mashup about building a rocketship in a cute town Countdown to cosy Image credit:Teenage Astronauts Stardew Factory? Factory Valley? Whichever it is, Little Rocket Lab is a factory-builder about efficiently placing conveyors and robot arms, and is drawn in the warm, pixel art small-town of a Stardew-like. That sounds like a fitting combination, although it does mean you’re building a NASA-sized rocketship on the outskirts of your quaint hometown....

Minecraft expands its subscription drive with the Marketplace Pass 150 Minecraft content packs a month, Bedrock only Image credit:Microsoft Mojang have announced a new Minecraft subscription service, the Marketplace Pass, which grants access to a catalogue of “150+” community-created Minecraft thingy-ma-bobs. Skins, adventure worlds, survival spawns, mashups, bizarre textures - with a Marketplace Pass, the wider monetisable universe of Minecraft is your (rented) oyster, except that this being Minecraft, the oyster looks like a weird underwater trapdoor....

Monkey Island creator’s new RPG is “best described as Classic Zelda meets Diablo meets Thimbleweed Park” No title yet, due late 2024 or 2025 Image credit:Terrible Toybox Genuinely legendary game designer Ron Gilbert – whose works include the classic adventure game Monkey Island , the RTS Total Annihilation (as producer), and the term “cutscenes” – is making a new game. The Terrible Toybox website describes it as “Classic Zelda meets Diablo meets Thimbleweed Park ”, and one of the other people working on it is Elissa Black, co-designer and writer of the wonderful Objects In Spac e… who is also, I’ve just learned from her personal website , working on a retro 90s style turn-based spaceship command game influenced by the 1971 mainframe adaptation of Star Trek....

Monster-filming horror game Content Warning is free to download for the next few hours Launch your SpookTube career for nada, 2nd April only Image credit:Landfall Publishing If you’re partial to the grim delights of Phasmophobia and not averse to the sicko enjoyments of Lethal Company , you might like new horror game Content Warning , which kind of blends the two and has the additional virtue of being free on Steam till 9am PT/5pm UK on 2nd April....

Monster Hunter Wilds review Some light seasoning Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Capcom Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom Release: Feb 28th, 2025 On: Windows From: Steam Price: £60/$70/€70 Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7-11700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, Windows 10 Much has been made of the simulation in Monster Hunter Wilds during the beta-filled run-up to its release. The ecosystem is teeming with beetles, fish and geckos. Seasons change. Carnivores go out hunting herbivores, and the herbivores wander around in a way that would make Sam Neill sit down in shock and exclaim that they really do move in herds....