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Warhorse have revealed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, sequel to the 2018 open world action-RPG which you will likely remember for a couple of reasons: 1) its ostensibly faithful but inevitably skewed representations of race, gender and class in medieval Bohemia, which were amplified by its creative director Daniel Vávra's qualified endorsement of Gamergate, and 2) being a moderately entertaining, buggy and mucky chivalric fable in which you have to worry about keeping your sword sharp and eating food before it rots.

Going by the announcement video, the new game is the same game but with more cash to burn. It's the work of 250 people, with Jan Valta returning as composer. According to Vávra, "what we are making now is what it was supposed to be in the beginning, but we were not able to do it because we didn't have enough resources and experience."

If you somehow haven’t fallen down the Balatro hole just yet, that slope is about to get a whole lot slippier. The mesmerising roguelike spin on poker is easy enough to lose an entire afternoon to by itself, but now it’s been combined with the granddaddy of all computer-related procrastination: classic Windows Solitaire.

Former PS4 hit Ghost of Tsushima is the next big PlayStation exclusive to make the leap to PC, and it’s bringing some extra PS-shaped features with it. The game’s Director’s Cut - representing the fact this re-release will include its Iki Island expansion and co-op mode - will be the first game that lets you earn PlayStation trophies from your PC, if you so wish.

Despite military sim series Arma and its zombie survival spin-off DayZ having their de facto home on PC, developers Bohemia Interactive opted to snub us keyboard-and-mousers for their post-DayZ game Vigor. The free-to-play survival shooter hit early access on Xbox way back in June 2018 - almost six years ago - and subsequently made its way to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. And yet, for more than half a decade, no whisper of a PC release was heard - until now, that is.

The Anniversary Edition of Braid was originally announced almost four years ago, and originally meant to be out sometime in 2021. As such, the latest delay to Jonathan Blow’s time-rewinding puzzle-platformer - which sees its date pushed back two weeks into the middle of next month - feels like a relative drop in the hourglass.

Larian aren’t just not making Baldur’s Gate 4 – they’re treating Baldur’s Gate 3’s success as an opportunity to develop their own intellectual properties, with two new games in the works. These games will build on the “sensibilities” of Baldur’s Gate 3 in being “immersive experiences shaped by your choices”, but by the sounds of things, they won’t be adaptations of anybody else's narrative or setting. Divinity: Original Sin 3? It’s the obvious call, but come now, free your mind. How about a kart racing game, Larian, or a banging old school mascot platformer? When are you going to make a platform game, Larian?

As you may know, the network this site belongs to is for sale.

To help us with our impending separation from the ReedPop business we are detaching some systems and services from the ReedPop brand.

One of those systems is our reader accounts system which powers profiles, comments, subscriptions, and newsletters on this very website.

Here at the Electronic Wireless Show podcast we're nothing if not ready to jump on a bandwagon, and the hottest wagon in town right now is the Fallout TV show. We've watched varying amounts of Amazon's new adaptation of Bethesda's favourite post-apocalyptic RPG baby, so there are some mild (but not total) spoilers within, as we talk about the show, the show biffing the leaving-the-vault-moment, the best things about the games, the Righteous Gemstones, and how good Walton Goggins is just, like, in general.

If the purpose of a tech demo is to induce a flash of thinking "Hey that’s neat," then I’d be lying if I said Nvidia’s Covert Protocol – a playable showcase for their AI NPC tool, Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) – hadn’t worked on me. If, on the other hand, it’s to develop that thought into "Hey, I want this in games right now," it’s going to take more than a slightly stilted natter with an aspiring bartender.

The problem with deciding to play every single Nancy Drew mystery puzzle game for a column is that, because they have been coming out since the 90s, Her Interactive have built up enough steam that I may never catch up to the front of the plucky citizen detective train. They have today announced a release date of May 7th for Nancy Drew: Mystery Of The Seven Keys, along with the official trailer.

This time Our Nance is heading to Prague, for a sort of old-world-meets-new story about hacking, medieval myths, and a stolen necklace. Nancy is hired to find said heirloom, and interview a bunch of suspects, one of whom is creepy puppet guy up there (there are no screens of Nancy because she never actually steps out from behind the camera in these games; she may as well be a cryptid). I realise this may not be of interest to regular readers of this site, but while I may not have seven keys, I do have one to the back end of this website, so nobody can stop me.

Friends, I have officially discovered another game I can play with my life partner, who regards most games with enormous suspicion and fatigue. That game is Morels: The Hunt 2, released this week, and as you might guess, it is about finding and identifying various species of mushroom in lush, photorealistic wilderness locations. There are also unicorns, crystal skulls and robot parts. Slightly confused by the unicorns, crystal skulls and robot parts, if I'm honest. It feels a bit like developers Abrams Studios are unconvinced as to the popular appeal of mushroom hunting, and have garlanded the concept with random mythology so as to widen the Venn diagram overlap between "fungi fans" and "people who want to live in cyberpunk Narnia".

If you'll be hiding from the sweltering sun in July (I say, daring the fates to try to spite me by delivering a cracking summer), good news: you won't be the only shadow-dweller. The fascinating Schim finally has a release date, July 18th. It stars a little shadowy soul trying to reconnect with its human by hopping from shadow to shadow through city streets, farms, factories, and parks bustling with life and moving parts. See how it works in the new trailer below!

1000xResist, from Vancouver-based sunset visitor 斜陽過客, is one of those high-concept sci-fi yarns that easily unravels into a million, bewildering threads of ambition and inspiration. Let me try to pack the premise, at least, into a clean paragraph: you are the Watcher, a clone of the immortal ALLMOTHER, who herself is the sole survivor of a disease spread by the arrival of enormous aliens, the Occupants. The ALLMOTHER's many clones reside in an underground bunker, the Orchard, while their deified parent fights the Occupants elsewhere. Your job within the Orchard’s theocratic hierarchy is to relive and interpret the ALLMOTHER's memories of life before the fall, a thousand years ago.

Blackbird Interactive, the team behind upcoming strategy game Homeworld 3, have released details on both the planned roadmap and the game’s chunky-looking collector’s edition, ahead of the game’s release next month, 13th May.

The roadmap details three pieces of paid DLC for the year ahead, plus an additional planned paid piece in 2025. This is alongside several free content updates. Together, they’re all targeted at fleshing out the game’s ‘War Games’ three player co-op mode. Specifically, the roadmap details new playable factions, starting fleets, challenges, emblems, and maps.

Nowadays, I'm more than happy to sacrifice high frames and a big screen for the comforts of the Steam Deck. I like lounging on the couch, the light forearm workout, and heating my room in only a few minutes. So it's good news that Moon Studios' upcoming ARPG No Rest For The Wicked will be playable on launch for Deck, the ROG Ally and other handhelds. Minimum PC specs also don't look too taxing, but those after the shiniest-looking game on recommended hardware may be in for a shock.

Slavic Magic, the sole creator behind anticipated (sub genres forthcoming) strategy game Manor Lords, has written a transparent and refreshingly to-the-point blog post on Steam addressing both expectations and future updates. Specifically, Slavic Magic aka Greg Manor Lords has taken time to outline exactly what his game - currently the most wishlisted on Steam, ahead of Hades 2 - isn’t.

Bethesda's very own Mr Handy (director and executive producer) Todd Howard has addressed the controversy surrounding the Fallout TV show's treatment of Fallout backstory, reaffirming the canonicity of Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas and promising that Bethesda and Amazon are being "careful" to maintain consistency between the games and the TV series. Are you new to this latest lore scandal? Watch out for Fallout Season 1 spoilers ahead, then.

“It’s time to venture outside your fortress!” reads Kitfox’s invitation to play the beta for Adventure Mode in Dwarf Fortress on Steam. Sounds like a trap to me. Sounds like the kind of thing a werebadger would say, to lure you out of hiding. Are there werebadgers in Dwarf Fortress? If there aren’t, I have to ask what developers Bay 12 have been doing all these years. Doubtless, the hills and valleys of the hitherto base-construction-only Steam edition are teeming with were-creatures of every flavour. Werefinches! Wereotters! Werebudgerigars! Werepoets!

Last time, you decided that gliding powers are better than Dragon's Dogma 2's Unmaking Arrow. Honestly I'm surprised it was that close (66% vs 33%—don't sweat the rounding), and I'm proud of your ability to weigh a whole concept against a single-game implementation. We are so good at this. Onwards! This week, I ask you to choose between placing things in two very different ways. What's better: a 'put back' action, or standing atop another player's head in an FPS?

The surreal pop synth of Sayonara Wild Hearts may have been the game that put Swedish developer Simogo on the map for PC players, but for me their earlier iOS puzzler Device 6 stands in my memory as being one of the most distinctive video games I've played. An interactive mystery novel at its heart, Device 6 took full advantage of its mobile-based hardware, asking players to turn and rotate their device to read certain lines of text, and scroll through its chapters searching for audio visual clues to solve its puzzles. I've often lamented that it never made its way to other platforms, even though part of its magic is inherently tied to physicality of its tactile origins.

Happily, after playing a few hours of Simogo's latest game, Lorelei And The Laser Eyes it's clear this equally classy detective story shares much of the same DNA as Device 6. It has the same love of riddles and mysterious, cryptic puzzles, only now they're writ large in a fully explorable 3D setting - a monochrome and maze-like hotel belonging to a reclusive artist. But Simogo's love of text hasn't been diminished in the process. Early on you find an instruction manual for Lorelei And The Laser Eyes within the game itself, which straight away tells you to have a pen and paper nearby to help solve its numerous conundrums. Heck, publishers Annapurna Interactive even sent me a full-blown notebook in the post just to hammer it home. They're not kidding, either. Even the opening section of the game had me scribbling down names, sums and symbols, much like Tunic, Return Of The Obra Dinn and Outer Wilds did before it. Which is just as well, really, as I'll definitely be needing some reminders when I come to play the full version on May 16th.

I briefly posted about this in The Maw, but was unsure at that point if SteamWorld Heist 2 was coming to PC day and date with the launch on Switch. That date is August 8th, by the way, and the answer is: yes it is! Though it was revealed at Nintendo's Indie World Showcase earlier this afternoon, strategy action-adventure-with-robots sequel SteamWorld Heist 2 isn't a timed platform exclusive, so that's fun!

SteamWorld Heist 2 is, if you hadn't guessed, a sequel to SteamWorld Heist, which came to PC in 2016. The first was a side-on tactics game where you, leading a team of robots, shot teams of other (bad) robots in turn-based skill-heavy tactical battles. While that all took place in space, the sequel has achieved splashdown, and you'll be chuntering about the seas with a new lead character (Captain Leeway) and a new bunch of crewmates. It's a robot pirate game, in other words.

If you can't wait to start rummaging in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's guts with its powerful new modding tools, you can now shoot for early access by signing up for a playtest on Steam. The new REDkit suite is based on the actual tools that CD Projekt RED themselves sued to create one of the best RPGs, and will let folks make a much wider range of mods. We'll be able to make new quests, new characters, even whole new worlds.

FACEMINER is a clicker/puzzle game where you work from your CRT monitor to analyse packets of facial surveillance data for a mysterious company. It describes itself as a ‘hardcore thriller clicker set in 1999’. As a connoisseur of unusual word combinations - as well as a believer in the satirical power of clicker games since playing Universal Paperclips - I immediately set about downloading the free Steam demo.

GTA 6 publishers Take-Two Interactive have announced that they're "rationalizing" their "pipeline" and positioning/restructuring/streamlining for growth by, you guessed it, laying off a load of people and cancelling a bunch of games. As detailed in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Take-Two are doing away with five per cent of the approximately 11,000 people who work for them, and have cancelled several in-development projects worth tens of millions of dollars.

Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree will release in June 2024, but even if you buy it day one, you might not be able to access the Elden Ring DLC expansion’s new overworld areas and dungeons right away. This is an add-on aimed squarely at those in the later stages of the game, as FromSoftware’s own Elden Lord Hidetaka Miyazaki has revealed in a new Famitsu interview – to gain access, you must first defeat two of the main game’s nastier bosses. Yes, I know that all Elden Ring bosses are nasty, but these two are among the worst, in my experience.

Is waiting for Hades 2 to release starting to feel like a sisyphean endeavor? If so, push that boulder no longer. Supergiant announced yesterday that fans of the action roguelite can sign up now to be considered for an upcoming technical test, via Hades 2’s Steam page.

With the arrival of Amazon’s Fallout TV series last week came the dropping of another bombshell: the possible truth behind a mystery that’s gone unanswered in the video games for over 25 years. Before you read on, please bear in mind that spoilers for the Fallout TV show’s season one finale follow!

With Larian having now officially handed the reins of the Baldur’s Gate series back to Dungeons & Dragons owners Wizards of the Coast (and their Monopoly-making parents at Hasbro) - with the developers saying they have no plans to make any DLC or a sequel - the ball for a Baldur’s Gate 4 now sits in Wizards’ court. The good news is that, yes, they also want to make a follow-up to one of the most acclaimed and successful video games of the last few years. Just don’t expect that to necessarily be anytime soon.

World of Warcraft is setting a whole new story arc in motion with its next expansion, The War Within. If you can’t quite wait until this summer to see what the first chapter of the new Worldsoul Saga trilogy has to offer, you might not have to wait so long. Blizzard are running a beta for War Within that will give testers the chance to delve into the subterranean addition early - and sign-ups are now open.

Palworld, the viral survival game that stirred up controversy (and found plenty of success) on the back of being a Pokémon-a-like - with added guns and factory labour, mind - is now due to become the inspiration for its own generation of clones, according to the head of its developers.