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Resident Evil and No More Heroes creators join long list of devs who think Metacritic is bad for game dev The Killer7 creator thinks there’s too much focus on the review aggregator Image credit:Grasshopper Manufacture Goichi ‘Suda51’ Suda - of No More Heroes and Killer7 fame - reckons a focus on Metacritic scores is bad for creativity. Speaking to GI.biz recently alongside survival horror genre maker-upper Shinji Mikami, Suda expressed his frustrations with the review aggregator platform’s cultural cache....

Rogue Point is a door-kicking co-op shooter from Black Mesa studio Pew pew Image credit:Team 17 Lots of Rainbow Six style a-breachin’ and a-clearin’ going on in that trailer there. We see blast charges, silencers, and one player using a big handheld battering ram to bust down a door while another tosses what’s probably a flashbang over the threshold. The Steam page calls it “high-octane tactical combat meets strategic planning” with “tough, unyielding enemies”....

Saints Row’s original design director is pitching a “grounded” 70s open world prequel with absolutely no dildobats Former Volition dev and Bit Planet founder Chris Stockman now discussing it with Embracer Image credit:Deep Silver Original Saints Row design director Chris Stockman is talking to the hellgods at Embracer Group about making a prequel open world game, possibly set in 1977 and containing absolutely no dildo bats. This comes almost two decades after Stockman left Saints Row development studio Volition, and a couple of years after Embracer closed Volition amid wider cuts....

Scrapped Evolve sequel revealed by concept art, including an asteroid mining station straight out of Dead Space Alas, it never escaped pre-production Image credit:2K Games Turtle Rock’s Evolve was, for me, an almost-brilliant asymmetrical shooter straining to extract itself from the jaws of a live service kaiju maddened by a sludgy diet of unlocks and micro-transactions . It was a huge round of hide-and-seek featuring one, upgradeable alien monster and four hunters equipped with jet packs, trackers, forcefield nets and assorted demolition gear....

Sega Of America staff have ratified a union contract, the first to do so at a major US studio The move comes amid layoffs at the company Sega Of America employees have become the first a major US video games studio to ratify a union contract. The contract covers guarantees minimum yearly pay increases for around 150 staff through 2026. The staff work in marketing and other departments at Sega Of America’s office in Southern California, as reported by Bloomberg (paywalled)....

Shake-ups at Square Enix see Dragon Quest’s long standing top producer step down Changes part of studio’s commitment to “reverse flagging sales” The long-serving top producer of legendary RPG series Dragon Quest has stepped down from the role, according to sources that spoke to RPS Maw tribute site Bloomberg . Yu Miyake, who has been involved with numerous DQ games since he joined Enix in 1989 as marketer on DQ books, is moving on to head up Square Enix’s mobile games....

Should devs tell people about launch bugs in advance? “It’s an interesting problem” says Starfield and Skyrim designer “The players expectations are that the game is flawless” says Bethesda’s Bruce Nesmith Image credit:Bethesda Game Studios How do official Bethesda bug compilation videos coinciding with a game’s launch sound? Or at least, a proper list of known bugs on day one, to preempt any compilations created by vengeful players? Skyrim Lead Designer and Starfield Systems Designer Bruce Nesmith has spoken a little about the “interesting problem” of how open developers should be about technical issues on day one, given the expectation some players have that every game should be “flawless”....

Skyrim-style open world RPG Tainted Grail: The Fall Of Avalon releases out of early access today Let’s not go to Camelot, tis a silly place Image credit:Awaken Realms If you are in the mood to play Skyrim or the recent Oblivion remaster , but you don’t want to play a Microsoft-backed game for, oh, any number of reasons , the word on the grapevine is that open world RPG Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is pretty decent....

Slay the Princess’ endgame is now bigger and stranger with more choices and over 3000 words of new dialogue There’s also new music recorded by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Image credit:Black Tabby Here’s one for all you connoisseurs of the horrific consequences of your own actions. Regicide-em-up visual novel Slay the Princess ’ new update brings with it new dialogue and music, fleshing out the game with additional choices, expanded scenes, and orchestral renditions of some choice tracks....

Stardust Demon is an intergalactic metroidvania that looks very snazzy indeed, and it’s out now How two people developed this is beyond me Image credit:resnijars I know there’s a lot of good metroidvanias floating around, but I implore you to take a look at Stardust Demon . Developed by two-person queer married team resnijars, it looks like a real charmer. All bright and fuzzy and with plenty of alien weirdness to hop over or battle, with lots of FMV cutscenes to bring those colourful characters closer to your eyeballs....

SteamOS seduces another handheld as a new Lenovo Legion Go 2 readies for June Costing just (coughing, spluttering) $1199 Image credit:Lenovo That poll I posted the other day suggests that over half of you RPS reader types play games on Linux, either in part or exclusively. And if a poll says it, I’m in no position to argue, so boy do I have just the CES 2026 story for you: Lenovo are making a SteamOS version of their premium Legion Go 2 portable, joining the lower-end Legion Go S in spreading the Linux-based SteamOS beyond the confines of Valve’s own Steam Decks ....

Stellaris’ new DLC BioGenesis lets you breed an existentially terrifying but cool as hell planet-sized monster, is out now Thinking bigger Image credit:Paradox Interactive Stellaris is one of those forever games where occasionally I’ll see that it’s released something new and think “dang, that old dog is still truckin’ along?” It seems to be that time of year again, as both a big update for the game as well as a new expansion dropped yesterday....

Strange Scaffold’s next game is about stalking and sacrificing your neighbours to keep the world from ending The first release in a five-game publishing deal Image credit:Frosty Pop Following game concepts including Max Payne with vampires , Kojima’s Strands with witches , organ trading , and an airport for aliens currently run by dogs , Xalavier Nelson Jr’s Strange Scaffold studio are back with another doozy. They’ve announced a release date of April 16th for Life Eater , a game about a modern-day druid who must kidnap and sacrifice people every year to sate a dark god and keep the world from ending....

Strategy autobattler Mechabellum has hit 1.0 after over a year in Early Access Thought bots Image credit:Game River I don’t know why we haven’t written about Mechabellum before now, but we haven’t. Let’s correct that. It’s an autobattler in which you plonk down squads of stompy robots then watch them win or lose against your opponent’s army based on the formations and upgrades you’ve chosen. After more than a year in Early Access, it’s just released version 1....

System Purge: Hollowpoint is a maddening platformer, but the good kind of maddening The hop is exquisite Image credit:Actual Nerds Alice Bee (RPS in peace) wrote about platformer System Purge a while back, saying it starred a witch with a nice hop. So I tried out the demo for its sequel, System Purge: Hollow Point , and can confirm that the witch still has a nice hop. I’m thankful for this, because if the witch did not have a nice hop, the game would be maddening in a bad way....

Take-Two Interactive and Remedy Entertainment are in a dispute over the letter R Remedy changed their logo to an R that’s apparently too much like another R Image credit:Remedy Entertainment Alright, alright, they’re in a disupte over the letter R as used for a logo for a video game company. As spotted by Respawn First , Remedy (they of the Alan Wake ) revealed their new logo last year, a big letter R, and Take-Two (they of the owning Rockstar Games) contest it....

The Horror At Highrook demo is a dangerously enticing marriage of Darkest Dungeon and Cluedo J’accuse the Plague Doctor in the Chapel with the bottle of reagent Image credit:Nullpointer Games / Outersloth It’s easy to lose moments watching the ambience of the gameboard change in the demo for haunted house RPG The Horror At Highrook . The colours alter from daytime greyness through winey shades of sunset into pale lavender moonlight....

The LCD Steam Deck’s days are coming to an end, as Valve wind down production of the OG model OLED or nuthin' The end of a very short era is here! I guess, if you care about the life cycles of tech products made by multi-billion dollar companies. It appears that the days of the original LCD model of the Steam Deck is coming to an end, as a quiet notice from Valve suggests their focus will be with the slightly newer, shinier OLED line of handheld gaming devices....

The Maw: what’s new in PC games this week? Frostpunk 2, GOW Ragnarok, UFO 50, FF16 and so forth and suchlike Image credit:Pierre Denys de Montfort/Wikimedia Commons Happy this week, everybody! The squirrels are trying to kill me. There’s a massive horse chestnut tree outside my flat, and whenever I walk under it they drop conkers on my head. The squirrels are clearly Maw cultists. They want to give me a concussion and choke off the supply of video game news to the Maw, which will then manifest fully and bring about an age of darkness....

The NYT Crossword answers for Thursday, October 2nd 2025 Get a bit of help with the NYT Crossword puzzle Image credit:The New York Times This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s NYT Crossword guide? Check out the NYT Crossword answers for Sunday, October 19th 2025 ! Need a hint for today’s NYT Crossword on Thursday, 2nd October? Well, you have come to the right place! NYT Crossword hints are what we specialize in....