The Maw: what's new in PC games this week?
Breachways, Greedfall 2 and Ara: History Untold, to start with
Live
This week's Maw, quantified: one compound eye with nine hundred and two quicksilver facets. One and a half wings with the texture of freshly peeled orange. Fifty tentacles, proboscises or flagella, some slender as cheesewire, some thick as a conifer. Ten sets of amethyst dentures shared by ten thousand mouths. One utility coat of muscles. One bowler hat. And now, an accompanying inventory of this week's most eye-catching new PC games.
On Monday 23rd September, blissful masonry toybox Tiny Glade and the early access launch of top-down SimSTALKER City 20. On Tuesday 24th September, just... far too many games: zippy skybound FPS Echo Point Nova, mouse graffiti sim Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed, pixelart creature-collector Beyond Galaxyland and, in early access, squalid mech bonanza The Forever Winter, simultaneous-turn 4X Ara: History Untold and period fantasy RPG Greedfall 2. On Wednesday 25th September, cheery roadster #Drive Rally. On Thursday 26th September, dogfighting deckbuilder Breachways and artsy retro horror Mouthwashing. And on Friday 27th September, the early access launch of Chinese Hades-a-like Realms Of Ink.
Are there other games deserving of mention? Probably, but look, I'm not made of hyperlinks. Please feed any games I've missed to the Maw via the comments on the right, and follow this week's frowsty and disagreeable attempts at news-gathering in the liveblog below.
A tactics RPG about a clown rebellion from the Keylocker devs, inspired by Disgaea? Yes, I would play that.
This year's LSDjam is underway. Prepare to trip balls.
Sharkmob's open world extraction shooter Exoborne is getting a closed playtest, from 10th to 24th October. You can sign up here.
Valve have patched multiplayer shooter Deadlock to give players the chance to turn cheaters into frogs, as can be seen here. That's according to a Valve developer who posts the changes to the game in a tucked-away forum.
The Tetris Company has announed a new Tetris game will be coming out in partnership with Japanese publisher Arika, report Gematsu. It is described as "Tetris that makes you better at Tetris." So... Tetris?
Some morning music - Alt J's Tessellate.
And here's a new trailer for ITER, in which you burrow up through stacks of rock to gather materials for your mobile base, with the format evolving into 3D when you venture above ground. The mining/base-defence premise has been done but this does look stylish.
Kakehashi Games and Bandai Namco Studios Singapore have announced origami-inspired 3D action platformer Hirogami, which "invites players to a world where everything has been crafted to convey the physical, often fragile, nature of paper, amidst the backdrop of an invasion by a powerful digital force known as the Blight." Isn't this basically what video game magazines have been trying to do since 2001?
Bring us home, Friday
I had to walk through pouring rain for an hour this morning, and am now greatly appreciating the comforts of my flat. I extend these feelings of gratitude unto you, reader. Get warm, stay dry and FEED THE MAW.Space Marine 2 patch 3.0 is out, which adds support for ultrawide monitors, private lobbies in Operations mode, and makes a lot of other changes.
The Finals' season four, which I wrote about earlier this week, is live now. The full details of what it contains are over on Steam.
The Convergence Games Showcase took place this evening, with trailers on a couple dozen indie games you probably don't know about yet.
Via Polygon's Nicole Carpenter, Spectre Divide devs Mountaintop Studios have laid off 13 developers to "make sure we're set up to support Spectre and its community for the long term."
Tenet Of The Spark is a moody 3D beat 'em up set in what looks like modern-day New York, oh wait, now you're a Viking with a hammer, oh wait, now you're an Aztec warrior with a boomerang-type throwing weapon. It seems that dimension-shifting is a thing. It's all a bit Spider-Versey.
The Metal Gear Solid Master Collection has a new patch, adding some visual bits you can find details of here.
Slay The Princess's Pristine Cut - which adds three new chapters and other content - releases on the 24th October.
Here are the first 10 minutes of The Axis Unseen, a heavy metal horror hunter from a former Bethesda dev.
Give thanks for Thursday
Because it's the day before Friday. FEED THE MAW.Here's the Steam page for All Will Rise, "a narrative deck-builder about taking the powerful to court for destroying the planet", from devs Speculative Agency with narrative design from Thirsty Suitors and 80 Days scribe Meghna Jayanth.
Visegunne is a very posh-looking 2D scrolling shoot 'em up with "soul-powered" mechs.
I'm moderately enthused for Hell Is Us, a blend of swordfighting and auxiliary drone combat in a world that's sort of Days Gone with a lovely view of Returnal. "If war is the closest we get to hell on earth, it's because Earth harbors the worst of demons: humankind," frets the trailer narration. The game does include some actual demons, though, because you can't combo a metaphor.
Well-aged dragons ahoy.
Witness ye the first trailer for Alan Wake 2's The Lake House DLC. It's coming "this fall". "Enter the Lake House, where monsters wear many faces, and survival is just the beginning," explains the blurb.
GeT YoUr TeEtH InTo WeDnEsDaY
FTM!Also out now: Remnant 2's Dark Horizon DLC, together with a free update.
Rogue Trader's Void Shadows DLC is out now.
Black metal TTRPG MÖRK BORG is getting a game...a vidyagame!
I am making an extremely long face at the news that Darkest Dungeon devs Red Hook have been acquired by Behaviour Interactive, who have laid off over a hundred staff this year and don't seem to have much of a business plan beyond "make more Dead By Daylight".
This is not new news but I only just found out so I'm posting it. Toxic Crusaders game! Next year! Looks at bit naff but still! It's toxie!
Pathfinder: The Dragon's Demand is a just-revealed table-top RPG adaptation with a miniatures aesthetic, from former Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights developers. Roll a D20 - if you get an 18 or higher, watch the trailer.
Dinoblade is a very realistic dinosaur sim.
CHEWSDAY INNIT
I think you'll find my Maw feeding loisence right here, officer.Blasphemous 2 is getting a DLC named 'mea culpa', which I believe is latin for 'mmmm, calpol"
Shirley Curry, aka the "Skyrim Grandma", is retiring from making videos about the game, she says. "It isn't fun anymore," she told viewers in an emotional video. "I'm tired of it..."
Noisy shooter Selaco is getting its noisy "Randomizer mode" earlier than planned, say developers Altered Orbit Studios. The noisy mode is going to let you enable random noisy enemy spawns, allow or disallow noisy earthquakes or noisy zombie invasions, and make noisy weapons spawn randomly, among other (possibly noisy) game modifiers. Noise.
Heart-poking RPG series To The Moon has launched a short new episode. It's called Just A To The Moon Series Beach Episode and features a lot of characters who are supposed to be dead, all mysterious enjoying a holiday at a beach resort. Hmmm.
It's Monday, so don't.
Just don't okay?