Casey Yano, co-founder of Slay the Spire developer Mega Crit, quit his job several years ago to work on the deckbuilder that would eventually earn a 92% from PC Gamer and a 97% overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam. It wasn’t a smash hit at first, when it launched in early access, but as Slay the Spire picked up attention it eventually became the inspiration for dozens more singleplayer deckbuilding roguelikes. Many of those games have also been successful, but the surprise breakout of this year’s Helldivers 2 and its unique approach to a live service shooter prompted PC Gamer’s Evan Lahti to ask to what extent developers should be trying to capitalize on whatever’s currently trendy.
“If any big companies are listening: Taking risks is actually the least risky thing you can do,”…
A new IGN report on Life is Strange: True Colors studio Deck Nine contains numerous allegations of dysfunction at the studio, as well as the surprising claim that publisher Square Enix was reluctant to embrace the series’ underlying themes—to the point that it told the studio it didn’t want Life is Strange to become known as the “gay game.”
The first Life is Strange game, released episodically through 2015, was developed by Dontnod, as was the sequel, Life is Strange 2, which came out in 2018. Deck Nine created the 2017 prequel, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, and the 2021 followup, Life is Strange: True Colors. It’s a bit of an unusual situation—kind of like an Infinity Ward/Treyarch back-and-forth, but for narrative adventures rather than military shooters—b…
Keep your Wordle win streak heading in the right direction with our helpful selection of tips and tricks. Learn how to make the most out of every guess with our general advice, make sure you’re on the right track with a clue written especially for today’s puzzle, or go straight for the February 29 (985) answer if you prefer. Whatever you’re looking for, you’ll find it here.
I was so sure I’d found today’s Wordle answer in just a few goes, so it threw me off when my sure thing turned out to be wrong, and left me staring at a few broken bits of the answer with no clue in sight. I ended up solving this one in a practical, if not particularly elegant, way, shuffling unused letters in and out of the gaps until I finally saw what I’d been missing.
Today’s W…
A new bundle over on Humble Bundle has me gobmsacked for the sheer value on display for a minimum of $10: The Humble Detectives Bundle is a cornucopia of delightful games about detectives and mysteries and killers from the last few years.
The bundle’s made up of film-world-focused mystery Immortality, serial killer thriller Killer Frequency, a fantastical world of dark secrets in Paradise Killer, cosmic horror in Call of Cthulhu, a double-dose of pixel jokes in The Darkside Detective and its sequel A Fumble in the Dark, and a whodunnit where you did it in Overboard.
$10 is pretty convincing as a price for many of those, frankly.
Immortality earned a rare 95% review from PC Gamer when it released back in 2022, with reviewer Kaile Hultner calling the collage of found foo…
The day is finally here, folks. Hitman 3 has evolved into a new form, becoming Hitman: World of Assassination, a newer and simpler version that casts off the original’s baffling array of purchase options in favour of a single, easy-to-understand package that encompasses all three games, plus an optional deluxe pack that includes the DLC for 2 and 3.
We’re also finally getting the much-touted and much-delayed freelancer mode, which adds a kind of roguelike variation of classic Hitman that sees Agent 47 waging war against criminal organisations from a new, customisable headquarters.
IO must have had a busy few months, because overhauling the game and adding an entirely new mode isn’t all the new version does. Those of you with RTX 4000-series cards can now enjoy Nvidia’s…
The Front is a “survival open-world crafting shooter” that promises a little bit of everything. It sets players up as resistance fighters who travel back in time to stop the rise of a tyrannical empire that used technology taken from mysterious artifacts to conquer the world. It sounds pretty straightforward as a sci-fi shooter setup, and not immediately terrible. But there are also zombies running around for some reason, and “exiles, thugs, and rebels” to deal with, tanks to drive and planes to fly, and even bases to build and defend “with tower defense-style traps.” And that’s without even mentioning the weather, which is also apparently pretty bad.
Games that throw in everything and the kitchen sink often end up as directionless messes, but the trailer for The Front actually lo…
More than 400 employees are being laid off from Twitch as a result of “the current macroeconomic environment,” which the company said is making it difficult to meet its financial expectations. The layoffs are part of wider job cuts at Twitch parent company Amazon, which said today that it will eliminate approximately 9,000 jobs over the next few weeks.
“As a company focused on building community together, this decision was incredibly difficult and one we did not make without considerable thought,” Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said in a statement.
“Like many companies, our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment, and user and revenue growth has not kept pace with our expectations. In order to run our business sustainably, we’ve made the very difficu…
Kaspersky Lab, Inc, the US subsidiary of the popular Russia-based antivirus software and cybersecurity company Kaspersky, has just felt the wrath of the US government. The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced on Thursday that it will be banning Kaspersky from “directly or indirectly providing antivirus software and cybersecurity products or services in the United States or to US persons.”
The ban doesn’t just apply to the sale of Kaspersky products, but also means that US customers will not receive updates to existing versions of Kaspersky software in general (via Bleeping Computer). Any US customers affected will need to switch to alternative antivirus and security software to stay protected from future threats.
As of midnight ET on July …
Most Genshin Impact fans agree that Hu Tao should stick to writing poetry after her embarrassing rap performance during the game’s new Lantern Rite event.
Genshin Impact is celebrating the Chinese New Year with the return of its annual Lantern Rite event. Like a lot of limited-time events in the game, Lantern Rite is an opportunity to learn more about the culture of the world and its characters. It’s sort of like a sidequest where you get to hang out with your favorite characters and see them interact with each other.
Hu Tao, a fan favorite pyro goth girl who is also the director of a funeral home and a poet, apparently thinks she can rap. She joins Xinyan, another pyro girl who is a literal rock star, to perform “The Blaze Lilies” in front of a crowd of people. Xinyan plays…
First reported by Ars Technica, ResetEra user delete12345 has made an interesting discovery about Steam libraries: we’re not allowed to bequeath them to our loved ones in the event of our untimely passing.
Delete12345 asked Steam Support about the hypothetical scenario, and got a clear, professional, but very disappointing response. “Unfortunately, Steam accounts and games are non-transferable,” the support rep explained. “Steam Support can’t provide someone else with access to the account or merge its access to another account.
“I regret to inform you that your Steam account cannot be transferred via a will.”
Now, I was going to suggest that you can just give your designated heir the Steam login and password without getting lawyers involved—barri…