Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown’s story DLC Mask Of Darkness is out now Resolving the fate of sexy Voldo Image credit:Ubisoft I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that Ubisoft’s best game of this year won’t be Star Wars Outlaws or the as-yet unreleased Assassin’s Creed Shadows , it’ll be Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown . The sidescrolling metroidvania is a rich, expansive, and surprisingly challenging take on a genre typically dominated by indies, and it’s precisely the kind of game I wish mega-publishers produced more....

Pure Rock Crawling looks like a knockabout MudRunner without the mud It received a new map today Image credit:Maciej Kuzianik Pure Rock Crawling is about steering off road vehicles across rocky terrain. It’s about pumping the gas pedal and wrenching the steering wheel just so, such that you lurch forward and over the obstacles, rather than tumbling backwards. It’s MudRunner without the mud, with a knockabout simplicity presumably as a result of its apparently one-man development team....

Put your neighbours under surveillance in automation horror game Beyond The Doors Walls have ears Image credit:Dream Error " Horror " and “automation” are concepts I’m used to seeing together in fiery/weepy essays about late capitalism. I’m less used to seeing them together in videogame marketing blurbs. Horror, in an automation-based game? Why, games with automation are supposed to deliver the finest and most methodical of chemical highs. They are supposed to feel like building yourself a better brain out of candy-coloured conveyor belts and smelters....

Refusing to get drunk in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is an oddly captivating act of rebellion Tales from the meadgame Image credit:Deep Silver This article contains moderate spoilers for the closing events of the Wedding Crashers quest in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 . It’s impossible, I think, to play Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 without playing a boozer, even if you’re only boozing in cutscenes. The game’s 15th century world is greased by many splendours of hooch, from the wine used in potion-brewing through the finer vintages at banqueting tables to the viral pondwater they sell in seedier taverns....

Republic Of Pirates is a more relaxed Anno-style city builder, out today with a demo You can tell yourself you plundered the free demo if it makes you feel cool Image credit:Crazy Goat Games “The Republic Of Pirates was meant to be different…” laments the narration in the opening of the seafaring resource-chain-em-up strategy , out today with a demo on Steam at time of writing. This made me laugh, in the same way someone saying “the failure of Bastard City was deeply sobering” might....

RuneScape: Dragonwilds’s next big update ups the level cap to 99, even though it’s literally pointless right now Emphasis on right now Image credit:Jagex RuneScape: Dragonwilds just held its 2026 summit this week, and with it came a bevy of details about future updates and plans for the survival game. Oh what joy for you scaper or runes! The main thing that got a look-in was the game’s next big update, Dowdun Reach: Madness of Zamorak, which certainly has an air of someone looking at any section of a given Dark Souls and thinking “yeah, I want a fortress like that....

Saber Interactive splits from Embracer, taking 3D Realms, Slipgate, Metro devs and more with them Embracer will also cease all operations in Russia Image credit:Focus Entertainment Saber Interactive have parted ways with Embracer Group, buying back the rights to both themselves and numerous other studios in a deal initially valued at $247 million. The deal includes 38 ongoing game development projects plus the rights to 3D Realms, Slipgate Ironworks, New World Interactive, Nimble Giant, Mad Head, Digic, Fractured Byte and PR agency Sandbox Strategies, as well as Metro developers 4A Games and Pinball FX maker Zen Studios via options....

Selaco early access review: GZDoom wizardry makes for sophisticated FPSing reminiscent of F.E.A.R. Far from doomed Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Altered Orbit Studios Developer: Altered Orbit Studios Publisher: Altered Orbit Studios Release: May 31st 2024 On: Windows From: Steam Price: £21/€25/$25 Reviewed on: Intel Core i7-12700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3080, Windows 11 You like F.E.A.R. ? You like DOOM? Yeah, I bet you like FPSing where you’re outsmarting soldiers in offices with a nailgun and gibbing demons like you’re ploughing a Hummer through a sequence of pheasants in an alternate universe Evil Somerset....

Shadowrun and Battletech creators unveil cyberpunk horror RPG set on a “dying space station” where upgrades change your personality “You are the ship of Theseus” in Harebrained’s new game Graft Image credit:Harebrained Schemes When I catch word of a chocolate-and-peanut-butter blend of genres such as “cyberpunk survival horror RPG”, my eyes light up. Literally, they light up like the pilot lights of flamethrowers, like glyphs on a cursed monolith that has been exposed to fresh blood after a billion years of dormancy....

Shiver me timbers, Skull and Bones is holding an open beta in February Will it be in one piece? Image credit:Ubisoft The much delayed, rebooted, and delayed live service pirate ’em up Skull And Bones actually pencilled in a release date not long ago. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more remarkable, Ubisoft have also announced it’ll get an open beta before it launches. In only a couple of weeks, you’ll be able to sail the seven seas with a purple rarity cannon firing off common rarity cannon balls that you bought off a rank 25 landlubber with your Skullbucks....

Silksong will get DLC and “some of the plans for that stuff are kind of ambitious as well” Oh no Image credit:Team Cherry Hollow Knight: Silksong began life as a DLC expansion, but then developers Team Cherry decided the concept was “too large and too unique “, and upgraded it into a full game. They spent six years working on the thing in almost total silence, while fulminating legions of the terminally online quietly drove themselves bonkers hunting for release date clues....

Skull and Bones’ PC performance is mostly smooth sailing, but do stow it on an SSD C: shanty Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Ubisoft Because it’s somehow my job to worry about the technical fidelity of electronic toys, I’ve been eyeing the long-overdue arrival of Skull and Bones with some nervousness. After nearly a decade of delays , you’d probably just want to get it out the door, right? Skip straight to the open-world pirate adventuring, none of that ‘making it work on a range of graphics cards ’ nonsense....

Sledding Game is a chill “hangout game” like Webfishing, but with penguins that ragdoll downhill Slippy days Image credit:The Sledding Corporation The relaxing fish catchin’ and scratchcard gamblin’ of Webfishing proved itself deeply attractive to anyone looking for an easygoing escape . So it makes sense at least one other developer is looking to apply the same lo-fi principles to their own “hangout game”. The simply titled Sledding Game looks like a chill afternoon of standing around on mountains with your mates and going for a big slide downhill every now and again....

Sons Of The Forest now lets you build rafts - and don’t worry, Kelvin is better at swimming now, too Plus lots of fixes Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Endnight Games Sons Of The Forest is about being chased by fithy cannibals who cannot swim, so the latest update ought to be useful to players. Its major new feature is the addition of rafts, which players can construct and then float about on like a 2000s Tom Hanks....

Soulframe director chats “Wiz versus Waz” and a demo he hopes will help prove it’s not just a soulslike “You have no idea how much fun we’ve been having for months, saying Wazzard” Image credit:Digital Extremes Soulframe is getting a Wazzard. No, not a wizard, a Wazzard. What’s a Wazzard, you ask? Same, friend. You best believe that when I got a chance to talk to Geoff Crookes and Sarah Asselin, creative director and senior community manager on Digital Extremes’ still-in-alpha fantasy MMORPG, I asked them....

Square Enix are remaking a classic 90s RPG about defending an empire from a bunch of spiteful ancient heroes Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge Of The Seven due in October Image credit:Square Enix Japanese role-playing game enthusiasts are eating good this week, as Square Enix announce a 3D remake for 1993’s Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge Of The Seven. It’s a high fantasy RPG in which you must shore up an empire and defend it from generation to generation against a group of legendary adventurers, who were trapped in another dimension many moons ago and are positively livid that people don’t talk about their sacrifices enough....

Stardew Valley gets yet another update, adding new mine layouts and ominous-sounding “fish frenzies” Plus fixes and changes for modders Image credit:ConcernedApe It’s starting to feel like ConcernedApe (aka Eric Barone) may in fact be a modern day Sisiphus, destined to work on Stardew Valley forever . Following on from the mega update of 1.6 a month ago , and 1.6.3 soon after that , the hardy perennial farming game has a new 1....

Steam Machine and Steam Deck support will be coming to Nexus Mods’ Windows-only mod manager at some point “Developers will be free to extend support for their preferred Linux distros as they please” Image credit:Bethesda / Trainwiz Ah, cool. The world’s foremost hosts of unofficial Skyrim additions you’d rather not have to explain to an elderly relative, Nexus Mods, have committed to bringing SteamOS support to their mod manager Vortex at some point down the line....

SUDDEN DEATH is a free slice of interactive fiction about love, drugs, and Australian football some of it is also about chips Image credit:BENNY BARASSI/GEELONG CATGIRL The closest I have come to having any interest in sport is when I got really into reading about football hooligans, or like, Blood Bowl , but I do absolutely recognise the romance of it all. SUDDEN DEATH is a delicious free slice of playable art-pie that celebrates that romance....

Tears Of Metal is a normal night out in Scotland with slightly more co-op roguelike stabbing Iron Brew Image credit:Paper Cult Oh, this one looks nice, doesn’t it? Tears Of Metal is a rousing medieval stabathon that sees you retaking your Scottish island from a bunch of bad lads who’ve decided to come have a go, which was a bit silly of them, honestly. It’s a hack n’ slash co-op roguelike with some nifty looking strategy elements and a striking art style, but you can tell most of that from the trailer below:...