Rally Point: Oh phew, Songs of Silence is only pretending to be a card game

No big deal

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Chimera Entertainment/H2 Interactive

Clambering deep out of the Contemplation Pit, where reading reviews or opinions or, god help you, Takes, is forbidden, I am curious to learn how people have been categorising Songs of Silence . Its structure most resembles Songs of Conquest or Heroes of Might and/or Magic, but with little RPG emphasis or base building, and minimal tactical fighting.

It’s about warlords towing armies around a strikingly pretty top down map, in turns, with gridless movement, to bash neutral armies and capture towns for XP and riches. Excellently, gold and army-boosting artifacts come as treasure trains that must be escorted home cash in, lest the enemy capture them after a fight. Units can’t be levelled, so losing them isn’t painful beyond the cost to replace them.

So how do you recruit more units? Cards. How do you upgrade your settlements, or use a hero’s powers to install a special building in them? Cards. How do you fight battles? Cards! A month ago I would have read this, and then needed the next fifteen minutes to inhale deeply enough for a suitably expressive sigh.

But it’s not a card game. Genuinely.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Chimera Entertainment/H2 Interactive

There’s been a trend in recent years, not just of dedicated deckbuilders (roguelike with crafting and survival and-), but of shoving card games into the square hole of things I’d otherwise enjoy. The former is fine. They’re Not My Thing. I can hate them all I want without doing any harm to an entirely valid thing that people clearly enjoy. I’ve even recommended a few , and only partly to use as a shield when calling you all terrible. The latter, despite my whingeing, is also fine and valid. It’s how we get new and weirder things.

There’s a third manifestation of The Card, though: a means to present information. I interpreted Shadow Empire’s stratagem cards as a way to represent your advisors’ proposals - as though each was a file on your desk that someone had helpfully drawn a little picture on, because that’s the kind of thing Dictator Sin would probably appreciate. Star Traders Colon Frontiers presented activities like spying and exploration as cards - each a possible outcome, which many character skills remove or replace to simulate your crew affecting events. You didn’t gather cards, and they didn’t do anything. Whether to count these as “card games” is debatable. Whether I don’t because I don’t want them to be is an even less compelling debate.

With Songs of Silence though, I’m going further: the cards are a mere affectation. With the pedantic exception of levelling up heroes (a “pick one of 3 skills” roguelike model), at no point are cards drawn, shuffled, replaced, or discarded. They are merely a UI. You could replace them with buttons or MMO action bars and the design would be identical. Marginally better, even, because the cards literally get in the way, obscuring each other from sight, with pretty illustrations that make it difficult to tell which is which. To level a hero, a card appears on the map, and you must drag it onto the hero’s model, which is quite possibly the most trivial amount of pointless labour I will ever complain about. I am devoting far, far too much attention to this fairly petty criticism, but I don’t care. Cards must be stopped.

But I enjoy Songs of Silence. It has a refreshing pace, thanks to doing away with HoMM’s building sites and constant resource hoovering. Most intriguingly though, it replaces turn-based tactics with an auto battler. “Battles run themselves with little player direction” isn’t new of course - a moment’s thought traces it as far back as the Settlers - but I’d never paid it much attention as a subgenre until SoS opened my mind somewhat to its potential.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Chimera Entertainment/H2 Interactive

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Chimera Entertainment/H2 Interactive

Hostile armies run at each other and exchange tense emails until one side dies or leaves to get a life. It takes at most a few minutes of simply watching, and periodically (hnngh) dragging a card to fire off constantly-recharging spells/powers. There are none of Eagarlnia’s showstoppers, but there’s some spectacle (notably the Void faction’s many sinister orbs), and a tonne of detail as every stablad runs around autonomously, magic artillery literally throw ammunition with massive hands, and lancers penetrate targets without slowing, and leave melee to wheel around for another charge.

Some spells are disappointing, some upgrades the dull “+2 instead of +1”, and of course your anti-demon troops target one squirrel while demons eat your archers. But that’s why you examined the enemy in advance, and arranged your troops to account for their simple brains. The benefit is dropping the chore of telling everyone what to do. Big encounters don’t mean having to make 80 decisions back to back, or lose the war because you misclicked seven turns ago. Beyond periodically aiming and timing a spell, your strategising is done, and it’s time to relax and see how you did.

There’s no building to dawdle over either. Settlements grow automatically, ticking up at level thresholds if you spend material. That increases production, and sometimes utility like healing or recruitment options. Each has space for one special building, summoned by a hero with no prerequisites or research.

Armies are small, restricted to seven reserves, and recover very slowly even with healers. Units can’t be merged, and most are comprised of several little guys/ghosts/gubbinses who take damage individually, reducing their damage output proportionally. Consequently, replenishing troops is everything. But recruitment is very slow, so you’ll regularly tour your lands with heroes, or dedicate one to ferrying reinforcements. Cycling forces around is a regular task, made complicated by the importance of formations, stacking bonuses, and enemy composition.

Every unit has multiple qualities (what it is), and abilities on top (what it does) like flight, negating magic defence, or extra damage to foes with specific qualities. Some lend bonuses to similar allies: A Hearthguard is pretty weak, but three of them reinforce each other, more than doubling their strength. Add a unit and artifact that buffs their qualities (Starborn, Infantry, Guardian), and they become a significant threat.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Chimera Entertainment/H2 Interactive

But wait. The enemy have anti-infantry and area attackers. I should switch the hearthguards for cavalry, and space them out. But my other hero will lose movement if I saddle her with the infantry, the city’s another turn away, and if I hit him now his backup will hit back, and I could lose that artifact….

All those decisions are the meat of the game but take more work than they should, especially with so many unit types. There’s no way to tell what bonuses are affecting a unit (and morale is opaque - several powers improve morale, but I have little idea what else affects it), finding information on enemies is fiddly, some tooltips name a power but don’t explain it. There’s too much cross-referencing, not helped by all the unorthodox names (I was hours in before being sure the Firstborn were the Primordials from the very slick introduction), and the need to zoom into every town each turn to recruit and check if it can level yet.

I’m straining against my loathing of the Notifications Plague to say it, because SoS is such a welcome contrast to the current fashion of drowning the screen in UI bullshit and notifications (who gave the machines permission to badger us all the time? Why do you leap across the room to obey their corporate orders the instant they Notify you? Have some goddamn self respect). But it could really use some clear indicators over towns and in battles. Its unit panels are gorgeous and stylishly arranged, but also a swirl of icons I have to repeatedly hover over one by one. I often can’t tell units apart, or whose soldiers just died because everyone’s damage indicators are yellow.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Chimera Entertainment/H2 Interactive

Despite a gorgeous and rather slick introduction, the campaign is a dull story without a single memorable character. Skirmishes offer the option of playing on two maps at once, linked by portals. Some of these “purgatories” are also the capital of its most interesting faction, who move it from town to town, consuming them for economic bonuses, and summoning miniature ones in battle to turn bodies into monsters or resources. The other two are dull by comparison, with distinct rosters but nothing so dynamic.

Songs of Silence is almost fascinating. Tampering with an established design framework so much was a gamble that definitely worked, creating a pacier, less exhausting model of its own, and integrating auto battles solves some fatigue and repetition problems many strategy games with tactical combat fall into. But its excellent art and one interesting faction highlight its remaining quality of life limitations, bland story, and two relatively pedestrian rivals. This design has legs, there’s some strategy fun to be had here, and I hope a sequel or major expansion is within the studio’s reach. But I certainly don’t hope it’s on the cards.

Songs of Silence

PC

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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12 Steam Next Fest demos to try first this October

The final Next Fest for 2023 is back with hundreds of fresh demos to try, and we’ve rounded up some of our favourites so far

Image credit:Valve

The latest Steam Next Fest is upon us, bringing with it a freshly packed week of new, free demos to try until Monday October 16th. There are literally hundreds you could try installing if you were that way inclined - you can view the full list right here if you’d rather browse through it at your own leisure - but we’ve been playing some of these demos in advance to help make wading through its torrent of shiny new games a little bit easier. Below, you’ll find 12 of our favourites so far, ranging from snazzy-looking shooters and big RTS games to neat little autobattlers, indie immersive sims and retro puzzle platformers. If you’re in need of some guidance this Steam Next Fest, read on.

These are the 14 biggest games coming to PC in 2023.Watch on YouTube

Truth be told, loads of games have already jumped the gun on this year’s Next Fest, and have been putting their demos live over the course of the last week, such as shellfish Soulslike Another Crab’s Treasure , first-person puzzler The Talos Principle 2 , motorvania Laika: Aged Through Blood , and big stride-y FPS RoboCop: Rogue City . You can find them in the big Next Fest list as well, but what we’ve got here are 12 fresh demos we wanted to bring to your attention on top of all those. As with previous Next Fests, we had access to a pretty hefty wodge of this year’s Next Fest demos - not all of them, alas, but certainly a lot - so think of this as an initial tasting suggestion, rather than a comprehensive list of everything that’s worth playing. We’ll be doing our best to unearth more hidden gems as the week goes on, but for now, here are our initial Next Fest highlights.

Warhammer Age Of Sigmar: Realms Of Ruin

Image credit:Frontier Developments

Katharine: I’m well and truly pumped for Frontier’s Warhammer Age Of Sigmar RTS, and Realms Of Ruin ’s Next Fest demo gives you the first three missions of its single player campaign to tuck into ahead of its launch next month on November 17th. You’ll be introduced to protagonists the Stormcast Eternals, and two of its trio of enemy factions, the Orruk Kruleboyz, and the spectral Nighthaunt. I’ve had a great time with these missions over the last couple of months at various preview events, and the Nighthaunt one in particular is brilliant fun - a classic ‘hold the line’ kind of deal where you’re fending off big ghost lads from all angles as the camera shifts and turns the battlefield on its head at pivotal moments. You can read a bit more about it here , but honestly, I’d go in knowing as little as possible. It’s better that way.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Buy Me Some Soup

Image credit:weekend

Alice Bee: I find that I have a limited tolerance for games that get a bit meta, and who knows? Maybe in the full game Buy Me Some Soup will get on my last nerve. But the demo is the exact right balance of weird/funny/infuriating/delightful. It’s a puzzle game where you have to buy your friend some soup on an old CRT computer. But then the soup online store is down. Then it’s up again, but you need to reset your account password. Then you need to find your credit card info. Between each of these stages you click through the files on your computer, send a picture of big foot to a cryptid society, play an Obra Dinn homage, break it, fix it, follow adverts on a YouTubelike website until you find an instructional video on how to not eat soup where a soup-eater is sort of… menaced? Comforted? By masked figures… It’s kind of a Daniel Mullins Game by way of weird flash escape room games and a hint of soup-based creepypasta. Great stuff!

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Snufkin: Melody Of Moominvalley

Image credit:Raw Fury

Alice0: How do you make a video game out of beloved childrens’ stories about curiosity and wonder and joy and anger and care and melancholy? The first half of this demo was about what I expected: extremely mild puzzle-platforming as you wander through pretty countryside. Hop about, drop rocks in water to make stepping stones, find birds, tootle on your harmonica to delight wildlife, and enjoy the landscape and Sigur Rós warbling. Sure, that’s pleasant enough. I did not expect Melody Of Moominvalley to become a stealth game as Snuffkin tries to restore nature by dodging cops in the service of the dastardly Park Keeper and destroying these rule-imposing parks. Snuffkin does not murder cops, does not creep up and jam his harmonica so far down their throats that they collapse with desperate wheezing honks, but he’s not above making birds attack them. The stealth puzzling is fairly light so far but I’m curious to see how it might develop in the full game. I’m curious in general. Aren’t you curious about a Moomins video game? Reason enough to download the demo and see for yourself.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

Image credit:Ghost Ship Publishing

James: Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor already had the bones of a quality Suvivorslike when I played an early build in June , and now you can try a version that’s begun grafting on the meat. There are more bugs to squish and more gadgets to help squish them with, though my personal favourite change is the unlock rebalancing. This Next Fest demo is far more forthcoming with damage boosts, producing more fun moments of bug slaughter and reducing the time you’ll feel like a small, weak man fighting a horde with water pistols. The core hook of DRG: Survivor remains compelling, in any case. As a pickaxe-wielding space miner, you can carve your own escape tunnels and chokepoints through rock walls, or stop to dink out some valuable minerals – a buttock-tightening prospect when a wave is bearing down. It all makes for an autoshooter that’s less about scooting across a flat 2D plane and more about reshaping the battlefield to your advantage.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Jusant

Image credit:Dont Nod

Ollie: It’s early stages, but so far meditative climbing game Jusant feels like something quite special. The striking visuals and lovely vistas roped me in and kept me there long enough for the intuitive climbing to start winning me over. If you’ve ever played The Climb in VR, it’s very much like that. Left and right triggers on the controller handle your hand movements, and you have to actually place your hands in the correct positions with the left thumbstick, which turns the many sections of wall on the giant mountainous tower into miniature puzzles. It’s a very tranquil game, but one that’s also got frequent moments of excitement as you abseil off a gigantic drop or wait a moment, shaking off your hands one at a time, readying yourself for a big jump. And as you progress, you’ll find areas of interest containing alternate routes, lore, and other little special discoveries.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

SENTRY

Image credit:Fireblade Software

Edwin: My flat has a fruit fly infestation. This has caused a crisis of conscience, because on the one hand, I am vegan and wish only the best for our fluttering insect brethren, but on the other hand, get the hell away from me you obnoxious, hovering idiots or so help me, I’m going to craft a flamethrower out of detergent bottles. Wave-defence shooter Sentry is a good way of venting these non-plant-based sentiments. It casts you as a robot soldier aboard a spaceship, setting up defences to stop aliens making it to the humans slumbering in their cryopods across the map. Said defences include launch pads (very efficient when placed near deadfalls), traction pads to slow those varmints down and of course, the indispensable auto-turret. Matches are split between building and action phases, as in tower defence games. Aliens attack along different routes that ravel together a little, and it’s obviously wise to identify spots where your traps can catch several squads simultaneously. You can also take a hands-on approach using rifles and pistols, but you’ll soon run out of ammo. Think of a stripped-down Meet Your Maker with low-fi visuals and you’re halfway there.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Peripeteia

Image credit:None

Katharine: I will hold my hands up and say that I haven’t been able to play a huge amount of Peripeteia just yet, but after reading about it in Rick Lane’s excellent feature about the imminent eruption of the indie immersive sim scene , I couldn’t not give it a look. So far, I’m still working out exactly where I’m meant to be going in this grim, lo-fi concrete jungle - its first and third-person controls have an endearing amount of jank to them, but its uncompromising design doesn’t half make it tricky to navigate most of the time. Still, I’m deeply enjoying its oppressively weird atmosphere, and if you gelled with It’s Winter or Babbdi , then you’ll probably get on quite well with this, too.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Bzzzt

Image credit:Cinemax SRO

Alice Bee: I’m not really a nails platformer sort of gal, but I can be persuaded in the case of the protagonist being an extremely cute little cuboid robot that might as well be a footstool. In this universe, the robot is human-sized, and I know because of the scale provided by its progenitors. The levels you’re platforming through are testing chambers to put the newly-minted AI through its paces (and I love the detail of seeing the scientists watching you in observation chambers in the background). The tests must have taken longer to devise than the robot, being a terrifying gauntlet of spikes, lasers, patrol bots, crushers, and so on and so forth. It’s a case of insta-death and insta-reload, and I’m absolutely charmed by the extremely retro feel of the whole thing. Bzzzt could be ripped straight from the 90s. And my conscience is soothed by the fact that the robot looks happy to start every level, continual destruction be damned.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Solium Infernum

Image credit:League Of Geeks

Katharine: Solium Infernum has a special place in the RPS history books, and after hearing so much about League Of Geeks’ latest incarnation of this ‘strategy game from hell’ over the last year or so , I’m pleased to report it’s shaping up very nicely indeed. As you vie to claim the vacant throne of Hell, plotting and scheming against your fellow coven of Archfiends, Solium Infernum is a strategy game a bit like a miniature Total War. There’s territory to claim, seats of power to possess, diplomacy and tributes to demand, and there’s also a full-on auction house of units, army leaders and ritual scrolls you can bid for behind the scenes. You only have two actions to use per turn, though, so you’ll need to think several steps ahead and adjust your plan accordingly as everyone’s moves resolve simultaneously. Happily, the Next Fest demo gives you its extensive (and very user-friendly) tutorial to get to grips with, as well as its singleplayer Skirmish mode so you can play some matches against the AI. Come for the demonic scheming, stay for the gorgeous artwork and wonderfully over the top fiend lords.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

The Last Flame

Image credit:Hotloop/Surefire.Games

Ollie: Straightforward it may be, but The Last Flame is doing a very good job of scratching that autobattler itch I’ve had ever since Dota Underlords first came out. If you’ve played any autobattler, you already know how to play The Last Flame. You assemble a team of heroes, equip them with stat-buffing items, and wage war upon enemies in battles where you can’t directly control anything. Once you hit that “GO” button, you’re just a spectator. So the strategy comes from gathering the right composition of heroes and items, as well as positioning your heroes correctly across the hex grid (which, by the way, allows you to put heroes in amongst the enemies from the very start, giving you a bit more control over which heroes target which enemies than Dota Underlords ever gave me). With each win you move up through a Slay The Spire-esque map of encounters and events, and with each hero death you lose some of your Flame. If all the Flame goes out, the run is over. It’s all very easy to understand and dive into, which is a large part of the reason why I’d recommend The Last Flame to any autobattler enthusiast out there during this Next Fest.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

The Thaumaturge

Image credit:11 bit Studios

Katharine: When I first saw The Thaumaturge back in March at GDC, I called it a detective RPG that’s part Divinity: Original Sin, part evil Pokémon - and now you can see if that description holds up for yourself with its special prologue Next Fest demo. It covers the same bit of the game I saw in my preview earlier in the year, putting you in the shoes of its titular Thaumaturge Wiktor as he sets about restoring his lost connection to his demonic monster pal Upyr in a remote, Russian mountain village at the turn of the twentieth century. He’ll be dealing with suspicious locals, a mysterious murder and a fair number of turn-based battles as he goes about his investigation, and it should give your tactical brain as much of a workout as your budding detective-ing. You’ll play as both Wiktor and Upyr in these fights and they’re all about manipulating the turn-order to your advantage - which is something I always love to see in a turn-based battle system. I love the setting too. While the meat of the game will take place in Warsaw, it will also have real-life figures such as the famous mystic Grigori Rasputin worked into its plot, and I’m very intrigued to see where it’s going to go when it launches in December.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Songs Of Silence

Image credit:Chimera Entertainment

Ollie: Songs Of Silence is probably the most gorgeous autobattler I’ve ever played. Except that’s doing it a misservice, because it’s a lot more than an autobattler. It’s a curious mix of genres - part Battle For Wesnoth , part Songs Of Conquest , part Clash Of Clans. And all wrapped up with some wonderful presentation, music, and a minimalist but competently voice-acted story which swept me into its world almost immediately. Only the start of the campaign is available in the Next Fest demo, but that’s more than enough to give you a sense of the game - you move armies across the overworld map each turn, playing world cards to take over and upgrade towns and villages, and recruit more units into your army. You can also enter into quick real-time battles with enemy armies, where you have no direct control over your armies except for determining their starting positions, and playing battle cards which do things like raining meteors down upon a particular point, or summoning powerful units into play at the right moments. Giving the player a limited amount of extra agency in what is otherwise an autobattler system may seem to defeat the objective of the automated battles in the first place, but I don’t mind it at all. In fact… I think I prefer it.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

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