After playing an early demo of Ice-Pick Lodge’s Pathologic remake in late 2016, I genuinely couldn’t sleep at night. Now named Pathologic 2, the game’s latest progress report teases its new combat mechanics, smarter AI NPCs and some of the nightmare-inducing locations that are set to feature in the final game. Throughout this blog post, Ice-Pick Lodge underscores the importance of resource management in Pathologic 2. “Let’s face it: while the mood and the role-playing of Pathologic 2 may not be

It’s an experience I’d recommend to almost anyone interested in this type of complex economic strategy board game, or the concept . It seems like this will be a boon for Terraforming Mars, as I was able to knock out 1v1 matches in under an hour. Human decision, however, will slow the game down considerably—I don’t expect that multiplayer matches will be any faster than the tabletop game takes. Suffering from a lack of cohesive visual design and lackluster art, Terraforming Mars was always carrie

Solid city builder Surviving Mars didn’t ship with console commands, but thanks to one modder you can add any cheats you want in just a few clicks. Want to quickly erect three residential domes in a cluster and then rain asteroids down on them? Grab the mod, called Expanded Cheat Menu, here. All you have to do is download a folder and place it in your game files, then enable the mod with the in-game mod manager. You can then use a number of different keyboard shortcut—detailed in the previous li

Old-school RPG Tower of Time’s nine-month Early Access journey (slightly longer than developer Event Horizon intended) is now over, and if you like the sound of a blend of magic, advanced technology, and party-based real-time combat, then it might be worth a quick look. You lead a group of adventurers into a strange tower that’s emerged from the heart of a massive earthquake. Its 50-hour story is told through both cinematics and lore books, but combat is clearly the focus here. If the combat sys

The update, which doesn’t yet have a release date, will also tweak the loyalty system introduced in the Civilization 6: Rise and Fall expansion. You’ll now get more loyalty from cities following the same religion as you, and less from those following a different religion. The team at Firaxis is also changing the way that joint wars work. Both the player and the AI will also be able to join joint wars that have already begun, gaining the benefit of the Casus Belli in the process. Lastly, the upda

Vampiric hack-and-slasher Code Vein showed off more of its combat in a new trailer this week, the highlight of which is definitely a deadly finishing move in which our hero summons the heads of two demonic wolves (that’s what they look like, anyway) from his back to devour an opponent. The wolves aren’t just hungry for finishers, either: you’ll be able to whip them out to carry on combos or deal extra damage, as you can see at 0:10 in the video. What we’ve seen of the combat so far looks impress

EA’s new chief design officer has vowed to “learn from” the mistakes the company made with loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront 2, and has promised that it will “do better” in future games. Premium currency is due to return next week, but the new progression system is much better. “We have taken significant steps as a company to review and understand the mechanics around monetization, loot boxes, and other things in our games before they go to market,” Söderlund said. And we won’t.”He added that

Hellish horror game Agony was due out on March 30, but it was delayed late in the day and developer Madmind Studio hasn’t yet announced a new release date. An AO rating would mean the game couldn’t release on consoles. The studio says that all versions of the game will be the same, so the PC version will be toned down too. However, it has also confirmed a “special, optional patch for PC that will remove the aforementioned ‘censorship'”, which players will be able to download after release. The p

If you fancy a bit of cartoon murder and don’t want to pay for it, then you should give Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle a whirl. It’s an officially-licensed game about directing masked murderer Jason Voorhees around a grid so that he can slaughter camp counselors. It’s made by Blue Wizard Digital, a developer that was set up by Jason Kapalka, co-founder of PopCap (Peggle, Plants vs Zombies). The studio made Slayaway Camp in 2016, and Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle looks like it has basically the

Namely, the next update will add a multiplayer ranking system that should give you more reason to play against friends or online randoms. “Shortly after” that’s done, Shiro Games will release another clan of fighters (think factions or races in other RTS games). In the latest patch, the team improved signposting in the campaign to give players a better idea of what to do at certain points. Lastly, it nerfed the Clan of the Raven by increasing the resources players needs to spend to colonise a te

On Monday, GOG will discount the most wishlisted games on its site, making them “super cheap” for a limited time. The sales site also said it will give some free games away. It’s not clear whether it will simply be giving some of the most wishlisted games away, as it did in February, or gifting some users games that they have on their wishlists. Many out of ten gamers agree: a healthy wishlist means a happy lifestyle. Here’s why:💜We’re granting thousands of wishes to GOG users for #free!❤️The mo

A Way Out is not a particularly good game, but its goofy co-op story about two soon-to-be escaped prisoners has proved a hit with players. Developer Hazelight Studios announced yesterday that the game has sold more than one million copies since it released in late March. It’s done far better than publisher EA thought it would, according to a marketing plan for the game that was leaked last year. In that plan, EA predicted the game would sell 203,000 copies in its first week, and would go on to s

The Banner Saga 3, the final installment of the excellent strategy game series, will release on July 24, developer Stoic has announced. If you haven’t played either of the previous two—and you really should—then they’re narrative-driven games developed by some ex-Bioware developers. You lead a group of followers across a beautiful, often-barren landscape in a rickety caravan, getting into turn-based scraps. Those choices, and their consequences, are the best bits about the game, and will inevita

Which game is just too damn long? Did we really need Black Gulch, a long, dark corridor you walk down while statues spit gobs of poison at you? Playing every game in a season, maybe once a week you have a good match-up. Not exactly the gut-punch finisher that a great game like Amnesia deserves. I only ever manage to get about halfway through before I get distracted and wander off into a different game.

Tonight, we got a couple of them: The first two Shenmue games, originally released in 1999 and 2001 for the Sega Dreamcast, are coming to PC. “This is the definitive version of these all-time classics and will be the best Shenmue experience to date,” Sega said. Shenmue 3 is of course coming to the PC as well, in case there was any doubt: Shibuya dropped some new screens and recommitted to a 2018 release earlier this year. One big question is how the old graphics will be upgraded for the PC relea

The first full trailer for Underworld Ascendant, the modernized followup to the great Looking Glass RPG Ultima Underworld, showcases colorful dungeons, broken stone halls, magic, traps, and a bunch of underground beasties looking to do you harm. I love it because it means that players have way more to do in that game.” Ultima Underworld was very open-ended, but it also provided a narrative experience that led players from top to bottom along a fairly consistent path. That’s really what I’d like

Tom Senior: Good companyWe launched our board game channel recently, which gives us an excuse to write about the tabletop card games, board games, and war games that a lot of us on the team enjoy off-hours. This week Jon wrote about some terrific Star Wars games , including Star Wars: Legion. I am often struck by the crossover between board game design and PC game design. If you’re playing a Firaxis game, you can be sure the design teams have brought a lot of board game experience to those syste

It’s been a bit of a rocky road for CD Projekt’s Witcher-based card game Gwent. Today the studio announced a new phase of development called Homecoming, expected to last for six months of “fully-focused development,” after which both Gwent and Thronebreaker will go into full release. “What we didn’t realize [during the public beta] was that we also started slowly drifting away from our original vision for standalone Gwent. “Six months is a long time, however, on the flip side, after Homecoming c

If you’re a Skyrim fan but haven’t bought Skyrim Special Edition—maybe you’re perfectly happy with the original, or find that mods for Skyrim already do plenty to improve it—you’ve got a nice window to take a peek inside without spending a dime. Skyrim Special Edition is free to play on Steam from now until April 16. If you decide you do want to buy it, it’ll be half-priced through the free weekend and all the way until April 23. If you see any Creation Club items that strike your fancy, those a

Now Play This is a festival of game design that took place in London last weekend, letting attendees get hands on with a collection of vibrant, experimental games, both as players and makers. Many of these games fit the festival’s 2018 theme of ‘place’, making the event feel like a whistle-stop tour of dozens of locations. Other games brought players into a much more fantastical space. Organizers Holly Gramazio, George Buckenham, Sophie Sampson, and Jo Summers, plus all the developers who contri