Elden Ring: Nightreign will support singleplayer, but it might not reward it FromSoftware seem mighty keen on this “co-operative multiplayer” concept Image credit:Bandai Namco Great was the adulation last week when FromSoftware announced a new Elden Ring game , Elden Ring: Nightreign - and great the lamentation from certain quarters when it was revealed to be a co-op-focussed experience. If you missed the reveal, perhaps because you value sleep over the spectacle of Geoff Keighley’s fashion friends , let me catch you up: in Nightreign , you pick one of eight preset characters and explore a parallel-universe version of Elden Ring ’s Limgrave map, fighting lesser foes and levelling up quickly so that you can battle a boss at the end of each 15-minute in-game day....

Embracer have laid off 8% of their global workforce since their “restructuring” began “Our overruling principle is to always maximize shareholder value in any given situation.” Image credit:Embracer Embracer have released their interim financial results for Q3, October-December 2023, in which they share details of the conglomerate’s on-going efforts to “restructure” and reduce their massive debts, to the tune of hundreds of layoffs over the past year. Amid the talk of revenues, profits and losses, we learn that Embracer have laid off 8% of their global workforce since announcing their restructuring program in June 2023 ....

Era One is an enveloping space RTS from Homeworld modders that lets you clip together your own Mothership Also has space cities and mutants Image credit:Team Complex If it seems like only last week that I was complaining there were too many gigantic space games, that’s because it was only last week . Since then, I have written about Kerbal Space Program 2 and Space Engineers 2, because I am nothing if not a creature of contradictions....

Fallout 76 lockpicking: How to pick locks and upgrade the skill Everything you need to know about increasing and upgrading your lockpicking skill How does lockpicking work in Fallout 76? Before the bombs dropped, people would stash stuff they didn’t want other people to get their hands on in their safes, or behind locked doors. It’s a sensible security measure, but the sad truth for the region of Appalachia in Fallout 76 is that almost everyone is either dead, an irradiated husk, stuck in a vault, or roaming the countryside and shooting everyone else....

Fallout: New Vegas’ latest modathon has flying robots, evolving gear, and cheeky waving in its pockets The Nexus Mods page of Obsidian’s deliveryperson simulator has once again lured me in like the Sierra Madre’s song Image credit:Obsidian / Outlander3k Ok, yep, it’s one of RPS’ biggest New Vegas /Fallout heads, here to tell you about some New Vegas mods that’ve recently dropped. Why? You might ask that. You’re quite right to....

Food Boy wishes only to deliver pizza, but the twerkers won’t let him Fortunately, pizza is a weapon Image credit:Short N’ Sweet During his tenure as the foremost newsperson of the 1980s, Atari’s Paperboy faced many grievous challenges - squabbling drunks, swarms of bees, the actual Grim Reaper - and yet, day after day he answered the noble call of journalism, lashing his basket to his doughty BMX and daring the treacherously oblique suburbs of Reaganite America....

Former XCOM devs say their Star Wars strategy game is “unaffected” after EA cancels Respawn FPS amid layoffs Bit Reactor are working with the Jedi: Survivor studio on the mysterious project Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/EA The developers of EA’s upcoming Star Wars strategy game have confirmed the project survived last week’s mass layoffs at the publisher and the cancellation of a first-person Star Wars shooter from Apex Legends studio Respawn, who are collaborating on the upcoming title....

Galacticare review: a silly space sim in the Bullfrog tradition, with a great sense of humour Treatment is simple. Go play game. Funny. Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Cult Games Developer: Brightrock Games Publisher: Cult Games Release: May 23rd 2024 On: Windows 10 From: Steam , GOG Price: TBC Reviewed on: Intel Core i5-11340F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060, Windows 11 Wacky space station management sim Startopia and wacky hosptial sim Theme Hospital are two of my favourite older games, so I was very pleased with the concept of Galacticare , which is a wacky space station hospital management sim....

Game Pass on PC gets six new games for April Including the delightful Lil Gator Game Microsoft have announced April’s new arrivals for the Game Pass subscription service, and it includes a cute game about being an alligator, a cute game about gardening, a cute game about fleeing a doomed planet in search of a new home among the stars, and also EA Sports PGA Tour , I guess. Here’s the full list of games heading to Game Pass on PC in April:...

God of War Ragnarök on Steam Deck shows the best and worst of handheld PC-ing Stay at home dad Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun 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....

Grounded 2: Release date, release time and Game Pass When Obsidian’s survival sequel arrives in Game Preview Image credit:Xbox Game Studios What time does Grounded 2 release? The sequel to Grounded, the fan-favourite Honey I Shrunk The Kids-style survival game from Obsidian Entertainment, arrives in just a matter of days. As with the first game, Grounded 2 is classed as an Early Access Game Preview title at launch, meaning we can expect more updates and features until it’s fully complete....

Grow your very own grandpa in this wonderfully unpleasant little indie horror game Growing My Grandpa! offers just that opportunity Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Yames I don’t remember much about my grandfathers anymore, only that they were once there and they loved me, and now they are gone. So if I were a small child with quarreling parents and I stumbled across a hidden abandoned lab housing a horrifying shapeshifting psychic lifeform, perhaps I would also try to want this maybe-a-demon to be my grandpa....

Halo’s most disgusting enemy was partly inspired by a children’s book A flood of anecdotes Image credit:Bungie / Robert McLees & Penguin Random House / Gustaf Tenggren It was the 20-year anniversary of Halo 2 at the weekend, which saw the shooter’s modern counterparts celebrating with classic multiplayer maps and long-lost levels . But also emerging from the dust of time are insights to the sequel’s development back in 2004. Rolling Stone interviewed two key designers of the game and made a fun discovery....

Having Ciri as The Witcher 4 lead will help the game explore the Witcher world’s sexism, say CD Projekt It’s also something of a Witcher origin story Image credit:CD Projekt The announcement of The Witcher 4 with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt ’s Ciri as protagonist has attracted a bit of discussion. Some of the reaction is online toddlers waxing wroth about a video game having a (somewhat older!!!) woman as lead character, and especially, shock, a video game in a series that has hitherto starred a man....

Helldivers 2 patch makes the toughest Terminids less frequent and easier to kill on higher difficulties Also addresses various non-Terminid bugs and crash issues Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/PlayStation The latest Helldivers 2 PC patch makes life a bit easier for players fighting the Terminids, aka monstrous hellbugs, on difficulty level 7 or higher, with tweaks to spawn rates for Chargers and Bile Titans, while increasing the spawn rates of certain other, less heavily armoured Terminids to fill the gap....

Hello Sunshine aims to be the world’s best and most poignant escort quest Mech Stranding Image credit:Red Thread Games There are two gods in Dreamfall’s third-person survival story Hello Sunshine . One is the enormous robot who saves your life in the game’s first and only cutscene - a flaking, orange-hooped juggernaut who promptly turns away from you and trudges eastward, its back emblazoned with a command to “follow”. The other god is the sun....

Herdling sees you guide some loveable beasts towards a mysterious summit From the makers of Far: Changing Tides and Lone Sails Image credit:Panic There are unexpected things in life, like when one of the recipes in my Gousto box (basically Hello Fresh) didn’t come packed with a key ingredient: a single red pepper. Devastating, especially since it’s only ever happened to me once. Anyway, this is a long but no less meaningful segue to a game from the Far: Changing Tides and Lone Sails devs Okomotive that’s just been announced at this year’s Geoffcom show....

Here’s a demo for Blades Of Fire, the new action-RPG from the Lords Of Shadow team Full game out 22nd May Image credit:505 Games Blades Of Fire is the latest dark fantasy smackeroo from Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow developers MercurySteam. It takes place in a world where steel is a divine substance passed down to humanity by the mysterious Forgers. Some sinister young queen has, however, cast a spell that turns everybody else’s steel into stone, granting her followers a near-monopoly on all the butt-kicking....

Hollow Knight Silksong walkthrough: Part 38 (Act 3 Wishes) A guide to completing all the remaining Wishes and quests in Act 3 Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Team Cherry Need a checklist of tasks to complete before finishing Act 3 of Hollow Knight: Silksong? Hopefully the checklist below can provide you with a decent idea of everything you have left to do in Act 3. If you’ve been following along with our Silksong walkthrough so far, then it’s entirely possible to just go down into the Abyss and fight the final boss now....

Hollow Knight Silksong walkthrough: Part 39 (True Ending) It’s time to finish Act 3 of Silksong Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Team Cherry Looking to reach the True Ending of Hollow Knight: Silksong? It’s been a long journey to reach this point, as you’ll well know if you’ve stuck with me over the course of this 39-part Hollow Knight: Silksong walkthrough. But now it’s at last time to face the final boss at the bottom of The Abyss....