B A T T L E F I E L D

THE INSIDE STORY OF

EA’S BUNKER-BUSTING
RETURN TO DUTY

PLUS
RESIDENT EVIL 9
THE ART OF THE
MODERN REMAKE
NINJA GAIDEN 4
2XKO’S JOURNEY
TO THE BIG LEAGUE #415
NOVEMBER 2025
Turns out devaluing games
might be bad. Who knew?
Sometimes analysts come up with insight that retunes your perspective on
a particular aspect of the videogame industry. But then there will be
something that makes you think, well, yes, we could’ve told you that if
you’d asked – there wasn’t really any need to spend all that time and
money studying it. This came to mind recently when Emmanuel Rosier,
director of market intelligence at research firm Newzoo, discussed the
company’s findings from looking into Xbox player behaviour. “There is so
much offering in Game Pass,” Rosier said, “that if you’re not getting
hooked on the game very quickly, you just go on another one, and you try
another one until you find the one where you will get hooked.” The real
head-scrambler was that this observation seemed to take people by
surprise, creating news headlines across numerous videogame sites.
Perhaps you just need to be a bit longer in the tooth in order to have a
comparison point for Xbox player habits. Anyone old enough to remember
the shady days of playground piracy will know how easy it was to Exclusive subscriber edition

devalue a videogame and make it feel just a little bit disposable. PS1
games were easy enough to burn onto cheap CDs, and it was even
possible to play 16bit console games from 3.5” floppy disks if you had a
few hundred quid’s worth of dodgy hardware from Hong Kong. In the 8bit
era, digging into a C90 cassette filled to the brim with new releases felt
quite a bit like trawling through Game Pass: give this one a crack and
don’t worry if it doesn’t grab you because there’s another one right after it.
Thanks to the shift from physical to digital, game piracy has diminished
in the playground, only to be replaced by another set of challenges
presented by subscription services. And there’s no point complaining
about it because Xbox Game Pass is a bell that cannot be unrung.
For developers, the work only gets harder. For the Battlefield 6 team,
getting closer to players seems to be the way forward, and on p54 they
tell us how this new approach is changing how a blockbuster FPS is made.

3
 88

games
Hype Play

30 Ninja Gaiden 4 88 Mafia: The Old Country

PC, PS5, Xbox Series PC, PS5, Xbox Series

36 Resident Evil 92 Metal Gear Solid Delta:

Requiem Snake Eater
PC, PS5, Xbox Series PC, PS5, Xbox Series

40 Vampire: The 94 Shinobi: Art

Masquerade – Of Vengeance
Bloodlines 2 PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series
PC, PS5, Xbox Series
96 Sword Of The Sea
44 Battlestar PC, PS5
Galactica:
Scattered Hopes 98 Shuten Order
PC PC, PS5, Xbox Series

46 Industria 2 100 Herdling

30 PC PC, PS5, Xbox Series

48 Dosa Divas 102 Echoes Of The End

PC PC, PS5, Xbox Series

50 Hype roundup 104 Abyssus

PC

106 Drag X Drive

Switch 2

107 Is This Seat Taken?

PC, Switch

Explore the iPad

edition of Edge for
additional content

4
 94

82

#415

70
sections NOV EMB ER 20 25

Knowledge Dispatches 78 The Making Of…

After the success of Overboard,
8 Not safe for videogames 22 Dialogue Inkle went back to school to create
Why are payment processors Edge readers share their opinions; Expelled. Was it a difficult lesson?
forcing censorship on games? one wins an exclusive T-shirt
82 Studio Profile
12 Jack to the future 24 Trigger Happy Strange Scaffold: living up to the
After an uncharacteristic hiatus, Steven Poole rejects robot dogs, first part of its name, and strong
Jackbox Party Pack returns but embraces his inner android enough to merit the second

14 Cracking the code 26 The Outer Limits 108 Time Extend

Inspecting Morse, Alex Johansson’s I am the law, declares Alex Battling time – along with a
experimental telegraphy game Spencer, playing Jury Games colony of giant radioactive ants –
in It Came From The Desert
16 Model of virtue
The all-digital craft of Ambroise Features 113 The Long Game
Niflette & The Gleaned Bell Back to the formative years of
54 Rally Point the FPS with Heretic + Hexen
18 Soundbytes Making Battlefield 6, EA is shifting 64
Game commentary in snack-sized the rules of engagement, putting
mouthfuls, featuring Shawn Layden players closer to the frontlines

20 This Month On Edge 64 Here Comes A

The things that caught our eye New Challenger
during the production of E415 At Evo in Las Vegas, 2XKO aims to
show what Riot’s strategic layer can
bring to the fighting game scene
54 70 Second Life
How do developers reinterpret
classics from the past without
stripping away their magic?

5
 EDITORIAL
Tony Mott editorial director Jon Bailes deputy editor Ed Smith features editor
Alex Spencer contributing editor Miriam McDonald operations editor
Warren Brown group art director Ryan Robbins designer

CONTRIBUTORS
Grace Benfell, Ruth Cassidy, Matthew Castle, Alex Chatziiannou, Milford Coppock, Christian Donlan, Rick Lane, Reid McCarter,
Lewis Packwood, Emmanuel Pajon, Simon Parkin, Steven Poole, Chris Schilling, Alex Spencer, Adam Starkey, Alan Wen

SPECIAL THANKS
Fabbio Scarito

ADVERTISING
Clare Dove UK group commercial director
Kevin Stoddart account director (+44 (0)1225 687455 kevin.stoddart@futurenet.com)

CONTACT US
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PRODUCTION
Mark Constance group head of production Stephen Catherall head of production Jo Crosby senior ad production manager
Jason Hudson digital editions manager Nola Cokely production manager

MANAGEMENT
Kevin Addley SVP, consumer division Matt Pierce MD, games and entertainment Tony Mott editorial director, games
Warren Brown group art director, games and tech Rodney Dive global head of design
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6
KNOWLEDGE
CENSORSHIP

Not safe for

videogames
Pressured by payment processors, games and
their creators still struggle with adult material

S ex has been a part of videogames

for almost as long as there have
been videogames. Atari’s VCS hosted
Through all this history, the potential,
real or imagined eroticism of games has
generated controversy. In addition to
a pornographic visual novel called No
Mercy, which features incest and sexual
assault. Via a petition on Change.org,
crude erotic games such as Bachelor Mortal Kombat, US congressional Collective Shout put pressure on Valve to
Party and Gigolo, bootleg and marginal hearings into videogame violence in remove the game from Steam, but the
though they were. In the 1990s, big- 1993 and 1994 cited Night Trap. The company did not respond. In April, after
budget adventure titles such as game lacked nudity or extreme violence, No Mercy was banned in Canada, the
Phantasmagoria featured sex scenes, but had a cheap, B-movie interest in UK and Australia, the developer, Zerat
trying to duplicate the maturity of cinema college girl sleepovers. The presence of Games, removed it from Steam itself. But
with live-action actors and sets. In Japan, sex scenes in games such as Mass Effect by then Collective Shout’s campaign had
pornographic visual novels, often was also the subject of a brief moral grown bigger, targeting hundreds of
featuring convoluted worldbuilding and panic, marked by a report from Fox games hosted on Steam and Itch.io. In an
plots, flourished into a subculture of their News. The broader acceptance of sexual open letter to payment processors such as
own. And recent years have heralded a themes in mainstream games has not Visa and Mastercard, Collective Shout
broader acceptance of sexual themes in quieted objections. stated: “We request that you demonstrate
mainstream games. Baldur’s Gate 3 and corporate social responsibility and
Hades are lauded for their romances. When its campaign started in March immediately cease processing payments
Parallel to film and TV, the creators of 2025, Collective Shout, “a grassroots on Steam and Itch.io and any other
major videogames now employ intimacy movement against the objectification of platforms hosting similar games”.
coordinators to help motion-capture women and the sexualisation of girls”, Collective Shout’s campaign was a
performers feel safe and comfortable. had only one videogame in its sights, success. In late July, Steam removed

8
 Getty, Sean Anthony Eddy

hundreds of games from its storefront. Itch Lovely Lady RPG, were deindexed from holders such as Steam and Itch to
deindexed every NSFW game on the store libraries following the concerns from “publish clear, detailed guidelines that
site. This mass delisting initially led to payment processors. Girl Purgatoriem, distinguish prohibited content from lawful
fears that other, non-NSFW games – or a game in which players can clone adult expression”, and prevent games
games that contained any ‘combat dolls’, was from being delisted or deindexed unfairly.
adult material – could also removed from Itch entirely. “Platforms have long had terms of
be pulled from sale. It was In late July, Steam service restricting content such as non-
erroneously claimed via A counter campaign consensual acts, rape, incest and
social media and some removed hundreds began, with game creators material that violates payment processor
news outlets that games of games from its and fans telephoning the guidelines,” the IGDA said. “The concern
such as Mouthwashing customer-help lines of today is not the existence of these rules,
and Consume Me, which storefront. Itch Mastercard and Visa, and but rather that their enforcement is
Itch had already delisted deindexed every sending emails to Valve’s adversely impacting games that do not
for reasons separate from support centre, en masse. actually violate these restrictions, often
payment processor NSFW game The International Game without warning or explanation. Games
pressure, had been pulled Developers Association that feature consensual adult content,
in response to the Collective Shout (IGDA) issued a statement, explaining that including queer, kink-positive, or romantic
campaign. While reports about Consume it was “seriously alarmed by the recent narratives, are easily targeted under
Me and Mouthwashing were later wave of game delistings, deindexing and vague or overly cautious enforcement,
corrected, a number of lesser-known adult payment disruptions targeting adult- often forcing developers into silence or
games, such as The Seventh Bride and themed titles”, and urging platform self-censorship because platforms fear

9
KNOWLEDGE
CENSORSHIP

FINDING THE LINE perceived risks associated with hosting

Both Nenmyx and legal adult content.”
Kastel share concerns
about “exploitative” On August 1, the situation became
media, but also more complex. Leaf Corcoran, the
doubt the efficacy
of Collective Shout’s founder of Itch, issued a statement saying
approach. “I don’t that the site would reindex any free adult
think there is a way to
draw a line between
games that had previously been removed
high art and low or from the searchable storefront. Mastercard
base art,” Nenmyx also made a statement, asserting that it
says. “Some of the
most perverted things had “not evaluated any game or required
I’ve seen have also restrictions of any activity on game
made me cry and
changed me as a creator sites and platforms” but that
person.” She also feels merchants needed “to have appropriate
that, while artists and
businesses can exploit
controls to ensure Mastercard cards
workers, fictional cannot be used for unlawful purchases,
characters cannot be including illegal adult content”.
exploited. “I don’t
think that fictional Valve issued a reply to Mastercard
media can fit into via Kotaku. “Mastercard did not
exploitation,” she
says. Kastel is less communicate with Valve directly, despite Girl Purgatoriem is one of the games that, at time of writing, has been completely removed from the
decided: “It’s very our request to do so,” the company Itch storefront. Would-be players can download it directly from developer Blood Machine’s website
hard for me to know
what is thought-
said. “Mastercard communicated with
provoking and what payment processors and their acquiring who should arbitrate between what is lack of consistent policies around sexual
is exploitative.” banks. Payment processors communicated exploitative and what is artistic. content across all these platforms. It is
this with Valve, and we replied by Furthermore, the incomes of many small precisely this ambiguity which Collective
outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of game creators are bound up in the Shout cited in its petition to payment
attempting to distribute games that are policies of platform holders. processors. In its open letter, the
legal for distribution. Payment processors Historically, Steam had strict rules organisation did not ask Mastercard or
rejected this, and specifically cited against sexual content, though they were Visa to create new policies around sexual
Mastercard’s rule 5.12.7 and risk to the applied inconsistently. Developers would content, but to enforce existing rules more
Mastercard brand.” upload ‘clean’ versions of their game on strictly. We reached out to Collective
Mastercard’s rule 5.12.7 explains Steam, locking sex scenes behind Shout for comment, but received no reply.
that the company will not process patches hosted on their own websites. In While the stated targets of Collective
payments for transactions that are illegal 2018, Steam reversed course, allowing Shout’s campaign are games that “glorify
or that “may damage the goodwill of the essentially any NSFW rape, torture, and sexual
corporation”. As well as statements from game, as long as the violence against women
Itch, Mastercard and Steam, on August 1 material it contained “Some games and girls”, on Steam, at
a free bundle of adult-themed games was wasn’t illegal. Console least, other games have
released by GOG, the online store platform holders have
vanish, not because been affected. One such
owned and operated by CD Projekt. tended to be more they broke the case is Vile: Exhumed, a
“We believe that if a game is legal, you selective, but even then, narrative game which
should be able to buy it now and the rules are unclear. In
law but because covers “assault, abuse,
decades from now,” GOG said. “Some July, Void Interactive had to someone decided and entitlement”. The game
games vanish, not because they broke remove nudity from SWAT uses a combination of a
the law but because someone decided simulator Ready Or Not
they shouldn’t exist” simulated browser interface
they shouldn’t exist.” before it could sell the and FMV videos, and
game on Xbox and PlayStation – but it’s shortly before its launch Steam refused
Olivia Nenmyx, writer
and programmer, At the time of writing, the situation purchasable alongside The Witcher 3 to let it go on sale, citing its “sexual
Howling Angel Games remains largely unresolved – Girl and Cyberpunk 2077, games that are content with depiction of real people”.
Purgatoriem, for example, is still not renowned, even acclaimed, for their The developer, using the name Cara
available to buy on Itch. Broader depictions of sex and physical intimacy. Cadaver, defended the game, saying in
questions about censorship and the In 2023, Xbox’s automatic moderation a public statement that “[all sexual content
financial realities faced by the developers tools flagged and banned users saving in Vile: Exhumed] is implied, making this
of adult-themed games also linger. The video capture of the sex scenes in Baldur’s feel even worse.” She concluded: “I
distinction between pornography and art Gate 3. Xbox quickly apologised and refuse to censor or make changes to the
can be blurry, and it is difficult to judge reversed bans, but the error represents the game. I will not retell a story about these

10
 Vile: Exhumed was one of
the most publicised games
denied a Steam slot, days
before its official launch

topics in a way to make people who do also sees the delistings as part of a A HISTORY OF
not understand more comfortable.” Just broader cultural shift towards CONTROVERSY
Even before the
over a week later, Cadaver and publisher conservatism, saying that “the disgust advent of home
DreadXP released Vile: Exhumed for free of the people in power is a weapon”. consoles and PCs,
videogames attracted
on a dedicated website. Other developers share concerns that controversy owing to
a “chilling effect” will hamper the ability sexual material. In
1973, Atari produced
Historically, the attitudes of of developers to make daring and artistic a twoplayer arcade
payment processors towards adult material work about sex. Kastel is a popular game called Gotcha,
has had repurcussions beyond games historian of visual novels and adult games, where one participant,
designated the
and the creation of art. Starting in 2023, and a game developer and translator. ‘Pursuer,’ chased
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) She is drawn to adult games because of another, the ‘Pursued’,
through a maze and
mounted a campaign against Mastercard their vulnerability. Itch delisted one of attempted to catch
that was essentially the opposite in nature Kastel’s games, Uranium Gays. “To me, them. While that on
its own may sound
to Collective Shout’s. The ACLU said that a lot of adult media actually deals with innocent, the first
Mastercard’s restrictions relating to adult issues of alienation and what it means to promotional flyer for
material would “restrict free speech” and communicate in a better way than quote- Gotcha showed a man
gripping the hips of a
“harm the livelihood of sex workers, but unquote ‘literature’,” Kastel says. “Once woman from behind.
fail to make adult platforms safer”. The you incorporate obscenity into your The joysticks on the
initial version of the
ACLU’s campaign is echoed in the feelings paradigm, you’re just going to think Gotcha cabinet were
of game developers now affected by the black-and-white forever.” also encased in two
pink-coloured domes,
latest issues on Steam and Itch. Videogames are more than mere which designer George
Developer Olivia Nenmyx is one digital toys – they’re appropriate formal Faraco allegedly styled
part of Howling Angel Games, a grounds for the exploration and to resemble breasts.
The domes were
queer, independent studio making visual representation of serious, adult themes. removed for Gotcha’s
novels. Howling Angel’s games explore Yet what might be perfectly innocuous actual launch.
sexual exploitation and religious trauma, subject matter in another medium
and some of the studio’s titles were becomes controversial in these contexts.
removed from Itch as part of the recent It’s possible that payment processors will
delisting. “When I pretend that there isn’t reverse course – and equally possible that
a lot of negativity in my brain, it leads the delistings and bans represent a new
me to not really say anything,” Nenmyx normality for videogame storefronts going Moderators at Steam took objection to Vile:
says. “I think this does silence people forward. But discussions of what we Exhumed’s ‘implied’ sex scenes because they were
made using real actors. But cartoonish games such
who have been through these things allow in games, and who gets to decide as Howling Angel Games’ With Reckless Abandon
and want to discuss them.” Nenmyx what is acceptable, will continue. have also been targeted on other storefronts

11
KNOWLEDGE
JACKBOX

Jack to the future

Having taken a year off from its usual release schedule,
party-game maestro Jackbox is back with a bang

B etween Zoom, Tiger King and hand

sanitiser, the COVID-19 pandemic
created some unusual must-haves. With
It would be easy to interpret this as part
of a post-pandemic downturn. “We didn’t
really maintain that same popularity,”
had their money’s worth. Jackbox has
learned how to leverage that goodwill to
make at least one experimental game per
entire populations stuck indoors, all trying Laban admits. But while the end of the year. For 2025, that game is the audio-
to find fresh ways to pass the time – and lockdown might have affected Jackbox’s based Hear Say, which Laban admits he
to ease the tensions of social distancing schedule, its fortunes are not tied to the was “happily surprised by when we
and isolation – Jackbox’s party games quarantine. “It went down a little bit,” started testing it and it actually worked.”
also, suddenly, got huge. “We sort of Laban says, “but now it’s trending up.” But Party Pack 11 is also a break
became famous as ‘that game we played Yearly releases may be on pause, but from tradition, insofar as it doesn’t contain
during the pandemic’,” chief creative according to Gallup, it’s because Jackbox a single sequel – a true first for the series
officer Allard Laban admits. has grander ambitions. “We wanted to as even the original Party Pack included
Originally designed to be played in do more,” the director of production says. bespoke versions of Fibbage and You
a shared living room, Jackbox’s games “We have a lot of good ideas. We have Don’t Know Jack. It’s a decision Laban
proved adaptable to webcams and a lot of talented people. We want to says was made with intent: “We wanted
screen sharing, their stretch out a little bit.” to, I don’t know, prove something.”
sociable silliness a tonic in And it’s not like Jackbox Partly, it feels like a statement,
those locked-away times. “We have a lot ‘skipped’ 2024. There was emphasising that Jackbox has plenty of
Laban recalls a common no fresh Party Pack, but the fresh ideas. It also represents a clean
of good ideas.
sentiment: “‘Thank you so studio released several break from the pandemic. But Jackbox’s
much. You really brought We have a lot of smaller projects including developmental processes are changing
our families together when the risqué Naughty Pack more broadly. One reason it didn’t
talented people.
we couldn’t connect’.” and the standalone Survey release a Party Pack in 2024 was to
According to a 2020 We want to stretch Scramble. Its biggest launch “free up people to make Trivia Murder
Bloomberg report, during of 2024, however, wasn’t Party 3,” Gallup explains.
out a little bit”
the earliest days of the a game. The Jackbox A standalone entry in one of the
quarantine Jackbox’s sales Megapicker is a client for studio’s most popular subseries, that game
leapt by 1,000 per cent. When we spoke displaying and launching individual has now been delayed until 2026. At one
to the studio five years ago, for a profile games without having to navigate each time, such a hold-up would have been
in E353, its headcount was 46. Today, by Jackbox title. It’s key to Jackbox’s long-term unthinkable, but Jackbox is in the process
Laban’s estimate, that’s almost doubled. plans. That brings us to October 2025. of breaking old habits. Laban also
One beneficiary of the expansion is Rich enthuses about online matchmaking in
Gallup, an industry veteran who joined Party Pack 11 is a classic Jackbox TMP3, and exploring beyond the limits of
as director of production in 2022. He release. It contains five games that hit all “the tech base we’ve been working with
says working at the developer is “like the established marks: there’s one for for 20 years, looking at fancier, modern
finding a lost city where everything just drawing, one for trivia, one based on 3D engines.” While he can’t go into the
works.” Given Jackbox’s output, efficiency social deduction, and one about writing game’s specifics, the CCO isn’t shy about
is vital – for almost the entirety of the past punchlines. That leaves a space for, as talking it up: “We’re building it out into
decade, it has released a new Party Laban puts it, one “that’s kind of weird”. something kind of spectacular. We
Pack, containing five games, every year. One advantage of packaging games Allard Laban (chief extended the schedule because it needed
creative officer) and
2024, however, was the first year together is that, even if players don’t Rich Gallup (director more time. We want to do this right. It’s
without a new Party Pack since 2014. enjoy every title, they still feel like they’ve of production) the beginning of something new for us.”

12
What’s in the ’box?
The 11th will be the first Party Pack with completely new games,
although four fall into familiar genres, with something for everyone

Doominate Suspectives Cookie Haus

An evolutionary descendant of Jackbox’s own Of all the traditional Jackbox genres, deduction This drawing game’s ‘cosy’ aesthetic is initially
Quiplash, in which you’re provided with a text games may be the hardest sell in an actual social offputting, the style having worn thin through
prompt and asked to write your own punchline, situation. Descendants of Werewolf, Mafia and overuse. And we’re less than charmed by the
which is then put to a public vote. Here, the Among Us, these are games about lying to the eccentric animal characters who come to our
prompt is something pleasant (for example, “a other players. Suspectives puts a twist on the store, delivering line after line of punny dialogue
brand-new Mario game…”) which you must find format by making it personal. Players secretly fill accompanied by Banjo-Kazooie-style voice effects.
some way to ruin (“…with the voice and face of out a short survey about themselves and then It’s a lot of tiresome setup before you get to
Chris Pratt”, say). While this gives you a baked-in one person is randomly chosen to be the Cookie Haus’ substance. But the mechanics are
joke format, it gets twisted around in later rounds. ‘criminal’. Everybody else must then deduce the anything but half-baked. You have to decorate
In the grand finale, you’re hit with old prompt and criminal’s identity based on their survey answers sweet treats to order (eg, “Make it anarchic!”),
punchline pairings and challenged to find a way and group interrogations. In TV terms, it’s more using icing and sprinkles that layer with satisfying
to ‘unruin’ them, encouraging the creation of Would I Lie To You? than The Traitors. Whether dimensionality. The variety of cookie shapes adds
inside jokes and layered callbacks. Now, how on that makes it more or less appealing will come a surprisingly effective twist, as you manipulate
Earth are we going to fix Pratt Mario? down to your particular friendship group. your doughy canvas to try to match the prompt.

Hear Say Legends Of Trivia

Jackbox games have always been played using smartphones and tablets A co-op trivia game that borrows the stylings of a fantasy RPG. Quizzers first
as controllers – part of their magic is typing or doodling in a web browser, pick their avatar from a roster worthy of BioWare or Larian (we’ll take the
then getting to see the results pop up on the television screen. Hear Say is anthropomorphic lizard mage). Random encounters then pit you against
still played using handheld devices, but rather than the touchscreen you monsters in side-on battles redolent of classic Final Fantasy, where correct
need to use the microphone – players have to record their own sound effects answers deal damage and wrong ones open you up to a counterattack.
and voice clips. Even tested in an empty office canteen, with only half a Different creatures represent different question types, including one that splits
dozen players and no one around except the occasional baffled onlooker, the potential answers between everyone’s phones. This is a hint at the game’s
the result is noisy chaos. A degree of embarrassment is natural, but worth real inspiration: the pub quiz. Every team member has a different answer and
getting past for Hear Say’s big payoff, where the winning noises are everybody is convinced that they’re the one who’s right. Do you try to reach a
dubbed over stock footage of nature docs, motivational videos and clips consensus, even if it might mean getting the question wrong, or all submit
of children whispering in Santa’s ear. It’s a lean, mean meme machine. separate responses, guaranteeing a point but causing a social schism?

13
KNOWLEDGE
MORSE

Cracking the code

How experimental-game specialist Alex Johansson
is bringing telegraphy to the masses with Morse

N o sooner have we entered Alex

Johansson’s Sheffield hackspace –
perhaps the closest equivalent to Emmett
the handle of a walking stick. It’s like
sending a pinball into play, except we’re
attempting to avoid shooting our white
LUDUM CARE
Johansson recognises
that one problem with
given to remake it in Unity, but the game
became bloated. It wasn’t until the arrival
of Playdate that Johansson revisited the
alt controllers is the
Brown’s workshop we’ve yet encountered LED light into the patches of blue (water) risk of environmental idea, stripping the game back to basics.
catastrophe if
in the real world – than our host offers to and yellow (sand) en route to the green. something becomes a Raising and lowering the console’s crank
make coffee. One problem: his kettle’s mainstream success: makes for a fine substitute telegraph,
“You saw that with
broken. The switch doesn’t work, he says; Another game, however, the Wii, where you
particularly when a small sponge is
it flicks back up as soon as it’s pressed. If occupies the majority of our attention and had landfills full of placed beneath it to cushion the taps. He
he weighs it down, though, it’ll boil over. time. Brandishing an old wooden case, dodgy thirdparty seems unsure whether to pursue it further,
peripherals.” That
No matter. He grabs a knife, balancing Johansson unveils Morse, played via a partly explains why so we encourage him to give it a shot.
its handle against the edge of a shelf, the jury-rigged antique telegraph, complete he’s not bothered
about his games being
tip of its blade resting on the switch, just with 1930s headphones, hooked up to a too widely replicable, That was 18 months ago. While the
enough to keep it down. A few minutes laptop. On a gridded seascape, with although he’s an Playdate version hasn’t quite come to
enthusiastic proponent
later, the switch flicks up, and the knife numbers on the y axis and letters on the of installing them in
fruition, a Steam version of Morse is
clatters onto the worktop. x, enemy ships scroll from communal spaces, imminent. As you might expect, it comes
The coffee’s terrible, right to left. We tap out should he get the with key-binding support, which means
but we’re getting a picture Anyone in sequences of dashes and
chance. “I really love
the idea of having anyone in possession of a telegraph can
of a man accustomed to dots to send missiles into them within play it the way it was originally intended.
possession of a residential care
solving problems with the corresponding squares, settings,” he says. Yet, as we suspected from our time with it
unorthodox solutions. telegraph can play to sink them before they “Like, I met a woman at the hackspace, Morse translates well
in Sarajevo who had
Johansson is every bit
the Steam version reach shore. Timing is key. never had a games
to keyboard controls. Tense and precise,
the charismatic inventor. Though you can muddle experience before. with a strong sense of escalation, it
Having spent time on the the way it was through by repeating the The idea of building
videogames for that
incentivises mastery. Anyone who already
game industry front lines,
originally intended same commands quickly, group, for people who knows morse code will find themself at a
he’s happier now operating you can deal damage have been completely distinct advantage, while those who don’t
detached from the
on its fringes. An advocate more efficiently by striking medium, is such an steadily gain an education in telegraphy.
for “approachable game design”, this the midsection of a ship – a tactic that’s interesting prospect. It says a lot for Johansson that he’s
There’s a real
self-styled educator and experimental vital when the fleets grow in volume. opportunity there.”
made the original Itch version available
designer has mainly been exhibiting his “It started with a clothes peg,” for free, playable in browser, to “hopefully
work at events in recent years. His games Johansson says, demonstrating another lower the barrier to folks accessing the
typically require alternative controllers, example of how household objects have game” – even as the scope of the Steam
with which he’s looking to reach beyond been powering his work. Then a brief edition expands, with deployable mines
traditional audiences. hitch before we’re able to play leads him and between-mission upgrades adding
In a little under four hours, we’re given to reveal – not at all sheepishly – a vodka the kind of mechanical depth that might
a whistle-stop tour of his work, all while bottle and some Blu Tack under the hood. make a certain funding body regret its
he delivers something of a manifesto for It appears at that moment that Morse will decision. Espousing the joys of ephemeral
getting non-players playing. For instance, only be playable at experimental-game hardware in our meeting in March 2024,
there’s Glow Golf, which doesn’t require events: Johansson says it was rejected by Johansson said he wasn’t really interested
a TV to play, but instead uses a strip of the UK Games Fund, because “its 2D in making his games commercially
LED lights. To hit the ‘ball’, we pull back a visuals meant it wasn’t commercially Morse creator
viable. With Morse, he might have
spring-loaded launcher which is actually viable”. He followed the advice he was Alex Johansson achieved the best of both worlds.

14
 Numbers require five inputs;
account for that time when
shifting rows. The help sheet
can be toggled off, and Expert
mode removes all prompts

ALL HANDS
ON DECK
How to win over
new players at
gaming events

At a typical game event,

Johansson says, there’s
plenty of variety in what
you see on screen. “But
given the absurd amounts
people pay to have booths
at these events, why would
you settle for something as
dull as a mouse and
keyboard?” He’s found joy
in winning over otherwise
disinterested relatives and
spouses with offbeat but
intuitive controllers. A (pre-
COVID) creation named
Vaccination was one such
success, tasking players
with treating patients by
injecting medicine with a
syringe. “I must have had
four different mums, who
were just there with their
kids, who adored the
game. It felt really good
Morse has been a popular attraction at events for some time now. Wear and tear has been to see them being super-
a problem for the full physical version, and Johansson has had to repair it more than once enthusiastic about it.”

15
KNOWLEDGE
AMBROISE NIFLETTE

MODEL OF VIRTUE
Solving crime in this miniature village
may be a bigger job than it seems
He may be tiny, but Ambroise Niflette is well versed Roundabout and Noddy. “[Our parents] passed down
in the practices of investigators such as Phoenix their love for these shows to us,” Ulysse Philippeau,
Wright. Pottering around the village of Touvoir-en- 3D artist and co-founder of Topotes Studio, explains,
Thym-et-Pomme on the trail of a stolen bell, he’ll “as well as the VHS tapes.”
need to gather testimonies, photos and other clues While this model village may look hand-made,
in his notebook, and see what doesn’t add up. though, it’s all been created digitally. When the project
What catches our eye first, however, are the began, there simply wasn’t enough space in the team’s
enchanting toybox visuals that remind us of vintage small Parisian flats to physically create the game assets,
stop-motion children’s shows such as The Magic Philippeau tells us. Getting the appropriate look from

16
the digital creations, then, required “a lot of depth of
field in every scene, as well as playing with big focal NPCs such as sleepy Samuel
lengths and small apertures, as you would in miniature here might not spill the
photography.” Those appealing props and buildings, beans until you complete
meanwhile, are simple 3D models covered in detailed certain quests. You may also
need to switch between day
textures to produce a hint of photorealism, while
and night to access different
character animation frames are crafted individually, locations, or solve puzzles
to create a realistic stop-motion effect. How might that to find pieces of the bell
impact our detective work? We’ll find out soon.

17
KNOWLEDGE
TALK/ARCADE

Soundbytes ARCADE
WATCH
Keeping an eye on the
Game commentary in snack-sized mouthfuls coin-op gaming scene

“If people play a

game for hundreds of
hours they shouldn’t
even be able to
leave a fucking
negative review.” Game One Piece: Dawn Strike
Manufacturer Bandai Namco
The Outsiders creative director David Goldfarb has a simple
The simplest ideas are not
proposal for an update to how user feedback works on Steam necessarily always the best
ones, but they are at least the
easiest to communicate in the
context of an arcade, where it
“Discovered “Even if they are 30 is literally a competition to
capture your attention, the
I could per cent better, they winner taking your money.
actually study are 200 per cent The premise driving One Piece:
Dawn Strike couldn’t be more
videogames, more expensive. straightforward: put a glove on
and the rest The math just your fist and smash the target
as hard as possible, then watch
is history.” doesn’t work.” your power transferred into
damage to a succession of
Battlefield 6 producer Alexia Fantastic Pixel Castle’s Greg Street characters from the popular
manga/anime series. A spin on
Christofi says: don’t worry on the problems US-based studios Sonic Blast Man for modern
about crappy A-level results face signing new projects in 2025 audiences, then. Fair enough.

“The Japanese are

the best at game
design… I am
surprised the west
hasn’t taken more
lessons from them.”
Has Shawn Layden missed what feels like hundreds of Soulslikes
over the past few years? (Or perhaps only good ones qualify?)

18
KNOWLEDGE
THIS MONTH

EXPERIMENT GAME
Internet Roadtrip Pixort
bit.ly/neal-trip bit.ly/pixort
Neal Agarwal’s latest Pixort offers a puzzle concept
interactive project has been that apparently misses the
live for a few months, but the point of its subject matter.
fact that it’s still going The whole idea behind simple
arguably makes it more VIDEO pixel-art sprites, after all, is
interesting to sample now Zombie Escape that a pattern of coloured
than when it began. Roadtrip bit.ly/park-eurgh squares only looks like the
charts a slow car journey When Techland released the thing it’s meant to resemble
across North America, seen first Dying Light in 2015, it when it’s arranged just so and
through the eyes of Google marked the occasion with a reduced until the blocks seem
Street View. Its route is live-action short film, shot to blend together. When you’re
determined by whoever is using a head-mounted camera, given a zoomed-in view of an
online at any given time, following a small group of object, with some of the
voting once every ten seconds survivors as they ran, rolled, squares moved around, and
on the direction the car will scrambled and generally asked to put them back where
take next. At times, that results parkoured their way to, well, they belong, it’s hard to
in squiggly lines across the not safety. A decade later and visualise the result you’re
minimap as groups disagree, with Dying Light: The Beast aiming for. Yet this game is as
but the game’s chat box is about to arrive, the Polish much about the techniques of
often active with ‘navigators’ developer has once again pixel art as it is about shape
doing their best in trying to teamed up with special-effects recognition. Even when you’re
corral the mob, while an studio Ampisound to create a not sure what you’re making,
accompanying Discord tenth-anniversary semi-sequel, the rules of shading and
community discusses long- now with an increased zombie highlighting – chequerboard
term plans. As we write this, quota and some nastier patterns, rims of dark tones –
the car is in Canada – it hasn’t deaths. It’s 28 Years Later can help. Sometimes it’s
taken long for players to meets Hardcore Henry, with guesswork, but it’s an
escape across the border. a drum’n’bass soundtrack. education too.

THIS MONTH ON EDGE

Some of the other things on our minds when we weren’t doing everything else
BOOK
Alan Wake: Design Works
continue quit
bit.ly/wake-book Would you kindly? Roblocks
Written by Edge’s own Alex Spencer, the next book in Lost In Cult’s BioShock has a new After lawsuits allege it fails to
Design Works series is a deep dive into the origins, development and series director in former protect users, Roblox toughens
legacy of the Alan Wake series. Based on extensive interviews with Diablo boss Rod Fergusson its online content policies
Sam Lake, Remedy creative director Mikael Kasurinen, and actors
Ilkka Villi, Matthew Porretta, Melanie Liburd and David Harewood,
the book itself is a Mind Place-style puzzle, in which readers need to Houser’s new home Dino-law
scour pitch-black pages to find traces of thermoreactive ink. Like Dan Houser’s open-world Sony files a lawsuit claiming
every major Lost In Cult production, it comes with a bundle of game inches forward as it’s that Tencent’s Light Of Motiram
additional souvenirs, including a map of Bright Falls and a napkin signed up by Smilegate plagiarises Horizon: Zero Dawn
from the games’ Oh Deer diner. Expect it to arrive in late 2026.
Cherry blossoms Development ’thell
Hollow Knight: Silksong is John Wick Hex developer
definitely coming in 2025. Bithell Games makes majority
Absolutely. Without fail of full-time staff redundant

Gunsmoke Champions trilogy

Overlooked western FPS Ex-BioWare producer Mark
Outlaws, from 1997, is Darrah says DA: Origins
getting the Nightdive and Inquisition remasters
remaster treatment were pitched, but no dice

bit.ly/edgebsky
Follow Edge on
Bluesky

20
 Knocked out not force one of your hapless writers to
I got to the end of your Mario Kart World undergo the procedure for the article and
review (E413) and was aghast at the (spoilers) end up in a body bag like the
complete absence of any mention of the episode’s protagonist.
Knockout Tour mode – in my opinion, the Either way, you can be sure I will still
highlight of the latest instalment and a be a loyal subscriber in this dim, dark and
mode I’ve been playing regularly online with not-too-distant future.
friends every Sunday evening since launch. Michael Betts
I then turned the page and discovered an
entire Post Script piece extolling the virtues Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to
of this superlative mode, which went some work on those prop cover images (certain
way to appeasing me, but also left me types of TV production move extremely
wondering: do you consider the Post Script quickly, it turns out), but it was a fun little
to be part of the review? I’d always viewed it project. Side note: if any game developers
as additional information that focused on an do have dangerous brain-implant tech in
area of the game that deserved expanding the works and need test volunteers, let us
on, but distinct from the actual know and we’ll try to rustle up
review, especially as it comes a work-experience candidate.
Issue 414
after the score. But here, to not “I certainly hope
even mention World’s best that you would Doomed
Dialogue mode within the review proper
seemed like a massive oversight. not force one
I will admit that, way back in
2016, videogame soundtracks
Send your views, using Paul Shinn
of your writers were not something you’d be
likely to see on my Spotify
‘Dialogue’ as the subject
line, to edge@futurenet.com.
Post Scripts are definitely to undergo the most-played lists. They were
part of the review package, something I enjoyed while
Our letter of the month wins even if they don’t necessarily procedure” playing, but I never really felt
an exclusive Edge T-shirt follow a familiar pattern from the urge to listen to them once
one to the next. We’ve taken this note the controller was put down.
on board for the future, though. Little did I know, however, that 2016
would be the year that a videogame
Cover versions soundtrack took all five spots on my Spotify
I have finally got around to watching Black Wrapped list with the introduction of a true
Mirror. I made it into the third season and masterpiece, the Doom 2016 soundtrack.

6
was watching the slightly daft but also Its brutal heavy djent metal guitar mixed
painfully plausible Playtest episode. with synths and atmospheric soundscapes
Imagine my surprise when one of the was just an intoxicating blend. It was a
characters held up nothing less than a copy sound I wanted pumped directly into my
of my favourite magazine, with the episode’s ears at full volume!
game developer savant plastered on the Fast forward to 2020 and Doom Eternal’s
cover. (The episode would go on to show The Only One They Fear Is You truly took
another faux issue of Edge framed on the the world by storm. The phrase “When the
developer’s office wall.) Doom music kicks in” was something used
The idea of Edge producing a cover-story even by family members who didn’t game!
interview with a game developer working All this is just background context for
on an AR videogame that interfaces via a me to say that when I read Mick Gordon’s
neck-mounted brain implant is just SO real. haunting open letter in 2022 regarding his
I certainly hope, though, that Future would terrible mistreatment, I was disgusted.

22
 DISPATCHES
DIALOGUE

And it’s with a heavy heart I write that it indiscriminately flattened a Quokka with we rode the waves of artistic freedom, and
seems more relevant now than ever. Every my tri-cruiser, only to be met with disdain if it’s aboard something as preposterous as
new edition of Edge I read contains more and a docking of 100 likes from Drawbridge. a coffin board, then so be it.
stories of the mistreatment of game I spent my most recent session, for Martin Seary
developers, studios or contractors. example, reconnecting the first monorail
Questions such as ‘How do we get route in its entirety to the ends of serving Is this a drugs thing, Martin? Are we simply
through this?’ and ‘How does this get my own world – and, more importantly, not taking enough? Or doesn’t paracetamol
better?’ are being asked. I don’t have any others’. Scurrying along an ashen beach count? So much enthusiasm, though – not
answers there. But one thing I decided early scattered with volcanic rock at night, I to mention inspiring another letter this
on was that I will not be purchasing Doom: ferried materials as the moon kissed the month – deserves a new Edge T-shirt to
The Dark Ages. undulating ripples of the ocean in the replace the one you landed in 2024, which
I will not support those practices. Maybe distance while Indigo by Woodkid played might well be on its last legs by now.
my £60 won’t make a difference. I’m aware out. I contemplatively yet diligently restored
that hundreds of other talented souls who a direct and convenient route of travel as the Piles of logs
did nothing wrong worked on the game. But riverbanks eroded and burst by torrential I felt compelled to write in after reading
I truly just cannot bring myself to support waters below my expedited flight. Safe to Martin Seary’s letter in E411. His first line,
Id after reading Mick’s letter. say, this created a core digital memory, one about backlogs and whether they matter –
So, thank you, Edge, thank you for the I will treasure forever, and one the auteur or even exist – got me thinking about my
Doom: The Dark Ages review in E412. 6/10… deigned me the autonomy to create by own backlog and those of my friends.
I can skip this one with no hesitation. myself. It reminded me of another memory We all seem to continue buying games
Osie O’Connor I made in GTAIV – nothing to do with quicker than we can play them, and
nihilistic violence, but rather quiet solace complain about it in the process. Nobody
Surf’s up as Flashing Lights played out at night as I really seems willing to change this
Imperfection is perfection. Or perhaps drove the streets of Liberty City in the rain, behaviour, though – we all seem caught
better put: a good gameplay experience the downpour lashing against the in a cycle of fear of missing out.
should possess a self-sustaining inertia of windscreen. The lyrics – ‘Everything we I think this maybe stems a bit from a
control and chaos. That is why, for me, know, is from the radio’ – felt suitably apt childhood of having plenty of time to play
Death Stranding 2 is a ten-out-of-ten game. for a game that demands that we discard games, but not having the money to buy
I couldn’t help thinking, as I read your our preconceptions of what a videogame them. With that flipped now, and having
excellently scribed review, that you were should or could be. more money to buy them but not enough
preoccupied with finding perfection, when Yes, the facets that make up beauty are time to play them, it makes the backlog
it is the imperfect that can be most disparate, vying, contrasting and imperfect extending understandable.
profound. Your Post Script was closer to – chaotic. Yet this convergence, when it So although it makes no practical sense,
landing on why subjectively this is a perfect happens, is far more poignant for me than I’ll probably continue to add to the backlog
game, in my opinion. a clinically well-crafted conveyor belt of a (within my budget, of course), and won’t
Let’s start with control. The delivery game which carefully constrains my every feel too concerned about it. These days,
gameplay loop is so expertly woven, step at risk of the façade falling down. with so little time, it’s nice to have a
continually laden with overt gamification Yes, contradiction and contrivance selection of different games to call on when
juxtaposed incongruently with a beautifully does occur in the form of incredibly the mood strikes (I’ll reference Martin
bleak and evocative landscape, that hours constructed boss and combat encounters. again, with his pick’n’mix metaphor), and
disappeared into a bottomless tar pit as I Conflagration was an astounding audiovisual who knows, that game I bought three years
sought out another ping of dopamine like a spectacle. Indulgent, unnecessary and ago might get to the front of the queue!
gratification gremlin. unforgettable. Yes, Edge editorial, why Gareth O’Keeffe
I was, however, surprised to see the indeed choose between the sublime and the
omission of a prominent theme in your ridiculous! Why can’t we celebrate such We’ve just polled the Edge team to find the
review, that of benevolence. Kojima taught untethered creative freedom in the digital earliest untouched purchase and arrived at
me the lesson of forgoing anarchy in favour world that Kojima is trying to make us see? ZX Spectrum Laser BASIC, acquired in the
of benevolence very early on, as I Too long we’ve been beached – it’s time late ’80s. If you can beat that, let us know.

23
 DISPATCHES
PERSPECTIVE

STEVEN POOLE

Trigger Happy
Shoot first, ask questions later

F
or many years, a small cult of videogaming. Recently I have been playing
‘existential risk’ thinkers has been co-op Biped, and finding it a great pleasure to
worrying itself half to death in San try to teach these cute and silly bots how to
Francisco about the possibility (or, as they walk like a human being, while also
see it, the very high probability) that a wondering what idiot of a robot designer
future artificial superintelligence will made them that way in the first place. (In its
destroy all humans. I guess it’s nice that brilliant one-stick-per-leg mechanic, Biped
they have a hobby, but have you seen qualifies as one of the few true walking sims,
ChatGPT 5? Shouldn’t we be more worried alongside the hilariously brutal QWOP.)
about the actually-existing robotic dogs? The joys of Astro Bot, too, would be
There is something genuinely unnerving qualified if the main character were a
about what has become the default design of cartoonish human, because Astro Bot’s world
the canine robot: headless, with spindly legs, is a vision of the rapturous technological
but extremely agile and strong. The general sublime: a sort of robot Eden on to which we
look was laid down by Boston Dynamics, fallen humans can project all the innocence
which calls its robot dog Spot in a blatant we have lost. In such fictions – most
attempt to make it seem less terrifying. If you important among Astro Bot’s progenitors is
acquire a taste for robot-dog videos, as I did probably Disney’s classic film Wall-E, from
recently, you can watch similar machines which we then follow the thread back at least
sprinting through forests and up hills of to R2D2 in Episode IV – robots lack original
scree, being whacked with a large stick by a sin; but they also lack avarice,
human and barely wobbling, emerging competitiveness, and murderous tendencies.
threateningly from a river, or crossing a street They are shiny, convex-surfaced children: in
while balancing on an exercise ball. their playful goodness we see something that
Such machines are among the most shames us, but also something to aspire to.
uncanny human artefacts yet invented, much It’s perhaps a more despairing version of
more so than humanoid robots, which despite I don’t doubt we’ll see some such projection that inspires the extropians:
their improvements still move in a stiff, close cousins to the “AI will kill everyone”
‘robotic’ imitation of human locomotion. A forward-thinking police forces doomers who instead think we should
robodog in full flight is much closer to the deploy robodogs to frighten embrace our cyborg future and merge with
expressive motion of the real animal. And this the machines. Or actively welcome the
is all before you mount weapons on them, citizens into submission prospect of artificial superintelligence
which of course everyone is going to do. An replacing humans as Earth’s top species.
Ohio-based firm called Throwflame has lately submission. And then they’ll put autogun The experience of playing any videogame,
publicised its Thermonator, a robot dog turrets on top and all hell will break loose. of course, is one of being blissfully ensconced
equipped with laser sights and a I am describing, of course, a doggy version in a machinic system, of being liberated for an
flamethrower that can spit ten metres of fire. of RoboCop. It’s all a far cry from the hour or two from the anxiety of the flesh.
The Ukrainian armed forces are already domestic-slash-industrial slaves that it was And to this degree even games that have you
operating a fleet of British-supplied robot first imagined robots would provide. Indeed, control robots capable of violence – via the
dogs, which so far are remote-controlled and the word ‘robot’ means ‘forced labour’ in Influence Device in 1985’s Paradroid, for
unarmed, used for reconnaissance. Czech: the word entered English in its present example – enable one to partake in the same
Illustration konsume.me

Meanwhile, a robodog disguised as a sense via Czech writer Karel Capek’s 1920 fantasy of smooth, steely logic. You might not
coyote is going to be deployed around play, Rossum’s Universal Robots. want to upload your consciousness
Fairbanks Airport in Alaska to scare away I wonder, then, whether the present permanently into a robot, but it’s fun to
birds. Soon enough, I don’t doubt we’ll see dystopian turn in the marketing of actual cosplay as one now and again.
some forward-thinking police forces deploy robots has in some way inspired the Steven Poole is a writer, composer and author whose
robodogs in cities, to frighten citizens into renaissance of the figure of the cute robot in books include Trigger Happy 2.0, Unspeak, and Rethink.

24
 DISPATCHES
PERSPECTIVE

ALEX SPENCER

The Outer Limits

Journeys to the farthest reaches of interactive entertainment

P
laying detective is a common enough (Between this and the video interviews with
fantasy, one that’s been well served by all our suspect, sat in a featureless interrogation
kinds of games, but what of those other room, you imagine someone behind the
parts of the justice system similarly dedicated scenes here is a fan of Sam Barlow.) I listen
(at least, in their most idealised form) to into my fellow jurors’ conversations for
peeling away untruths, but which lack the keywords, many of which yield fictional
attractive glamour of sleuthing? What I mean LinkedIn, Facebook and Companies House
is: who ever fantasises about being called up pages I can then read out to the room. It’s a
for jury service? nice opportunity to help the group, without
Well, apparently enough of us to support needing to make too much eye contact.
the continued existence of Jury Games. These This doesn’t last long. At first I approach
interactive show-trials debuted online in my fellow jurors with the emotional distance
2020, before making the move in 2023 to of a detective, piecing together not just the
in-person performances at London’s Theatre facts of the fictional case but also the real-life
Deli. Admittedly, in order to make it more family tree I’m roosting among. But then I
appealing than receiving an actual summons, spy, in the hands of family matriarch Glynis, a
a few liberties have been taken with the real laminated text-message exchange, the
legal process here, bringing it more in line contents of which have clearly been fed
with the traditional detective role. through a letter-substitution cipher. These
In the branched-off reality of Jury Games, are skills I honed just last month, as part of
a pandemic backlog of cases led to legislation Can You Solve The Murder’s hybrid murder-
allowing the entire court process to be mystery/puzzlebook, and naturally I can’t
outsourced to a room of everyday people. resist the opportunity to flex these new code-
That means you’re playing both prosecution cracking muscles. The appreciative noises
and defence, sorting through raw evidence from my table neighbours leave me feeling
and interviewing the suspect directly before like a child showing off at Christmas, and I’m
voting on your group verdict.
Who ever fantasises about not too proud to admit I rather enjoy it. By
The key difference between this and the the end of our 90-minute session, Granddad
detective as usually portrayed, however, is jury service? Well, apparently Steve and I are debating manslaughter versus
that it’s a group effort. That brings the game murder like old (slightly odd) friends.
closer to a well-designed escape room, where
enough of us to support the Reflecting on the places this column has
multiple people can work away at multiple existence of Jury Games taken me, I’d recently begun to conclude that
problems in parallel, occasionally calling out the parts of the ‘immersive’ scene I value
their partial solutions in the hope of a Less a case of 12 Angry Men, really, than One most are the same as in videogames. Spaces,
sympathetic ear. Since your answers here Very Awkward Man. systems, spectacle: these are the things these
won’t unlock doors but potentially lock One of the younger generation leaps to the artforms do better than any other. They’re
someone away, with room for interpretation whiteboard and begins a timeline of events. rarely quite as good at people. Or so I thought.
about what justice looks like, the group When we’re granted our first interviews with Jury Games’ brilliance isn’t found in the
dynamic becomes important socially, too, the accused, the role of interrogator is taken appropriately poky conference-room setting
with the case seemingly designed to up by a man I can only think of as Uncle Bad or the smartly open-ended puzzles, but the
encourage deliberations spilling out into Cop, his demands for the truth delivered at way it forced me to interact with people who,
Illustration konsume.me

arguments. Great stuff, generally speaking. such volume that the actor on the other end two hours ago, were perfect strangers. We
More specifically speaking: it does make it is surely glad for the screen separating them. part with jokes about them adding me to the
somewhat less than ideal to be the sole I opt for a more backseat role, tapping at family WhatsApp group – and for a moment
stranger on a panel of jurors otherwise one of the provided laptops loaded up with I actually think, damn, maybe.
consisting of three generations of a single fake Ministry Of Justice database software Edge contributing editor Alex Spencer is now available to rent
family, here as part of a birthday celebration. that responds to specific search prompts. as a temporary family member, particularly if cake is involved.

26
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 #415

THE GAMES IN OUR SIGHTS THIS MONTH

30 Ninja Gaiden 4 50 Fatekeeper 51 Well Dweller
PC, PS5, Xbox Series PC PC, Switch

36 Resident Evil Requiem 50 Once Upon 51 Octopath Traveler 0

PC, PS5, Xbox Series A Katamari PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2,
PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series Xbox Series
40 Vampire: The
Masquerade – 50 Monster Hunter Stories 51 Goodnight Universe
Bloodlines 2 3: Twisted Reflection PC
PC, PS5, Xbox Series PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox Series
51 Tropico 7
44 Battlestar Galactica: 50 Nutmeg! A PC, PS5, Xbox Series
Scattered Hopes Deckbuilding Retro
PC Football Manager 51 The Adventures
PC Of Elliot: The
46 Industria 2 Millennium Tales Explore the iPad
edition of Edge for
PC 50 Earth Vs Mars PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox Series extra Hype content
PC
48 Dosa Divas
PC

28
 Blood in, blood out
The beginning of our trip into Resident Evil Requiem has us feeling a little
disoriented. Protagonist Grace is bound and hanging upside down, and if
that would normally make the blood rush to her head, here it’s being
siphoned off through a primitive-looking IV needle wedged in her arm. In
games, we’re used to seeing blood in sprays, as a kinetic particle effect. In
Requiem, as we empathise with Grace, we’re left to contemplate the light-
headed, crawling terror of seeing our blood outside of our body in an
alarmingly substantial quantity.
Blood is synonymous with horror, as a signifier of violence, mutilation
and unnatural death. It’s also synonymous with ‘mature’ (in a specific sense
of the word) action games, symbolising similar things for very different
purposes. In horror, blood is a disturbing eruption from which we recoil. In
action, the release of blood is often cathartic, like the colourful, arcing
strings of a party popper, not least when it’s coupled with someone
unpleasant getting their just deserts.
In that opening to Requiem, though, blood assumes another of its
MOST defining guises – that of a kind of life force. That
WANTED externalised blood is the measure of Grace’s strength, or
Keeper rather her weakness. In that sense, it’s conceptually
PC, Xbox Series
At time of writing, we’re preparing to get
our hands on Double Fine’s latest for the
similar to the blood in Vampire: The Masquerade –
first time at Gamescom, but it’s also only
a couple of months until its full release.
Bloodlines II. As the titular nightstalker, blood is the
The chance to play the role of a walking
lighthouse feels typically untypical for the
sustenance that fuels your power, which you physically
studio, and should be, well, illuminating.
drain from your victims like a hungry IV. But the undead
Double Dragon Revive
PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series aren’t alone in revelling in the wonders of blood, as we
With Absolum, Marvel: Cosmic Heroes
and Scott Pilgrim all spoiling for a fight, find out with Yakumo, the star of Ninja Gaiden 4. A
could the genre granddaddy show them
who’s boss? Revive’s key selling point is series that has never been shy with more conventional
its 3D environments and use of depth,
making its fisticuffs more multidirectional. uses of plasma, spilling buckets to accentuate the ferocity
Horses
PC
of its combat, now gives the gore purpose as Yakumo
Santa Ragione has unnerved us in the
past, but rarely as much as with its trailer channels it for his powered-up Bloodraven fighting style.
for this cursed farming sim in which
naked, horse-headed slaves are treated It’s a smart rethink of the properties of the spattering
as livestock. It shouldn’t be long before
we find out what on Earth is going on. scarlet, on top of its visual impact.
 H Y
P E

NINJA
GAIDEN 4
The ultimate meeting
of precision and style

Developer PlatinumGames, Team Ninja

Publisher Xbox Game Studios
Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series
Origin Japan
Release October 21

E
ven in the early sections of Ninja Gaiden grainy interludes of vengeance and dusk that
4, Team Ninja and PlatinumGames’ proved videogame violence could be stylised
intentions are made clear. Yakumo, the to an operatic degree. The series came into
latest recruit to the Hayabusa clan, advances its own in 2004, when Dead Or Alive creator
along the roof of a rattling freight train. Waves Tomonobu Itagaki reimagined Gaiden for
of enemies leap aboard to halt his progress. Xbox; long before FromSoftware made
He spins and sidesteps, countering attacks, uncompromising difficulty a selling point,
severing limbs and finally executing foes with 2004’s Ninja Gaiden and its immediate
a deep, lunging katana stab. As arterial spray successors became infamous for their intense
rains down, Yakumo holds a sleek, arching and severe challenges. There was a keen
pose like an Olympic gymnast waiting for austerity in the design – no flabby systems,
applause. But he’s interrupted by a pair of no indulgent exposition, just movement and
futuristic gunships. Missiles streak through momentum – and a fierce commitment to
the air. Bullets make glowing orange holes mechanical clarity. You either kept up with
in the sheet metal around Yakumo’s feet. As the pace or died trying.
the gunships fire a climactic fusillade, the
eponymous ninja dives from the roof of the It has been more than a decade since the
train, limbs splayed, the very image of an ’80s last mainline Ninja Gaiden game, long enough
martial-arts movie star. The logo is stamped that the series’ return feels more like a
across the screen. The tone has been resurrection. Co-developed by PlatinumGames,
established; it’s stylised, kinetic and absurd, the Osaka-based studio renowned for making Masakazu Hirayama
and in an age of battle royales and expansive action classics such as Bayonetta and Metal (director, Team Ninja) and
Yuji Nakao (producer and
open worlds, also bracingly naïve. Gear Rising: Revengeance, in conjunction with director, PlatinumGames)
The series has always occupied a curious series originator Team Ninja, Ninja Gaiden 4 is
space in videogames. Simultaneously a relic of one of the most intriguing design mergers in
the arcade era and a harbinger of the modern recent years: the two foremost creators of
action genre, rather than chasing trends, Ninja high-speed, precision combat no longer
Gaiden’s various developers have given it long working in competition, but in concert.
life by gradually refining its unique identity. The game’s genesis is as much personal as
The original 1988 Ninja Gaiden was most it is corporate. Team Ninja has long wanted
noteworthy for its atmosphere, built on to return to the series, but the opportunity

30
Yakumo is a rookie in the
Hayabusa clan. His armour
blends ninja lines with
futuristic tech, while his
movements signal a warrior
testing the limits of his skill

31
 TOP Bloodraven Form transforms
Yakumo’s twin katanas into a
sweeping tachi, turning defence
into overwhelming offence.
ABOVE While the early sections of
the game are comparatively story-
heavy for the series, exposition is
soon shunted aside, allowing the
action to roar to the forefront

TOP Environments vary in

detail. The most striking
seen so far are those set
within a rain-slicked, neon-
smeared Tokyo abandoned
to ruin, its streets stained
by the constant crimson
downpour from a dragon’s
entombed corpse.
ABOVE ‘Formidable’ enemies
demand Sekiro-like poise –
parry, punish, and reclaim
health from the brink in
tense, timing-led duels.
RIGHT Raven statues open
combat trials that pit
Yakumo or previous
protagonist Ryu against
escalating waves of foes
or bosses for rare rewards
and bragging rights

32
 H Y
P E

NINJA GAIDEN 4

arose only when longtime friends Hisashi As in Revengeance, combat is treated as

Koinuma, president of Koei Tecmo, and both choreography and contest, rewarding
Atsushi Inaba, president of PlatinumGames, timing and placement as much as aggression.
began discussing the idea of making something It’s a joyous mesh of interlocking verbs:
together. The conversation turned to Ninja perfect dodging, wall-running, charged
Gaiden. When Phil Spencer heard the rumours, slashing, chaining projectiles. The rhythm is
he offered his backing, giving the project a syncopated and tense, and every encounter a
final push by making Xbox Game Studios the kinetic composition. Attacks have weight,
publisher. That confluence of personal but also a playful theatricality. Every slash,
rapport, platform-holder support and mutual dodge and counter feels decisive. More than
respect between studios has set the stage for encouraged, movement is essential. Block too Louder than
one of the most unusual and anticipated long and your guard will break. Mistime a words
collaborations in recent action game history. dodge and punishment is swift. But play well Yakumo is a more
But before it touched even a line of code, and you’ll enter a delicious flow state where emotive and vocal
Platinum returned to the earlier games in the decision precedes thought. This is where character than his
series, dissecting their rhythms and trying to Platinum’s hand is clearest, in the precept that near-silent
predecessor Ryu,
understand what made them work. Yuji Nakao, each encounter should be as expressive as it
who is present in this
Ninja Gaiden 4’s producer and director on the is exacting, a performance that pushes you game, but secondary.
Platinum side, discovered that, thanks to the toward mastery while remaining a spectacle. Where Ryu was a
purity of its combat, the series and its central But there is also a sophisticated balance silent executioner
premise “transcended time”. The essence of here, and a level of restraint that feels novel to who had reached the
Ninja Gaiden, as Nakao defines it, lies in an apex of his abilities,
Yakumo is still
“undeniable feeling” of responsiveness,
paired with a control scheme that conceals
“It’s almost like you become learning, exploring
the boundaries of
enormous depth. “It’s almost like you become one with the controller. It’s his powers. “It
one with the controller,” he says. “It’s elegant, was Platinum’s
intricate and precise.” Preserving that energy elegant, intricate and precise” suggestion,” Nakao
says. “After such a
is Platinum’s priority, but the studio is equally
long break between
determined to weave in its own sensibilities, Platinum’s work. Masakazu Hirayama, the titles, it made sense to
the dynamic expressions that have made the director on Team Ninja’s side, explains that begin a new chapter.
studio’s work so widely revered and will his studio has occupied a more supervisory A new player needs a
surely now bring Ninja Gaiden to the role, checking Platinum’s builds daily, new protagonist.”
Narrative, normally a
attention of a new audience. suggesting tweaks to ensure the game sits
background concern
comfortably within the series’ traditions and for Ninja Gaiden, has
This is what you can see in the opening creating leeway where the Osaka team’s been given greater
hours. Platinum’s games tend towards the talents can shine. “Key members of the Ninja attention. There are
maximalist and this particular one has many Gaiden franchise were deeply involved in radio conversations
between missions,
characteristics of the studio’s hits: the balletic steering the game’s direction,” Hirayama says.
cinematic cutscenes
exaggeration of Bayonetta, where every strike “Fumihiko Yasuda, head of Team Ninja, and and hints of character
is also a flourish; the propulsive, almost Makoto Shibata, producer of the Ninja Gaiden development for
compulsive momentum of Vanquish, in which Master Collection, were both closely involved.” Yakumo, whose
movement and offence are inseparable; and Together they reviewed the feel of the combat, inexperience allows
the bladed precision of Metal Gear Rising: the game’s narrative tone and even the him moments of
uncertainty. Still, the
Revengeance, with which Ninja Gaiden 4 shares cadence of animations. The aim, Hirayama emphasis remains on
the most DNA. As in those games, animation says, has been to make the collaboration less tempo. “After the
and input are closely harmonised, so that even like outsourcing and more like a learning opening, the story
the smallest feints are clear. Combos invite process. The resulting game, he insists, is recedes,” Nakao
improvisation without lapsing into looseness. not entirely the work of either studio, but explains. “We wanted
to set the world and
Enemies respond with a vigour that keeps you “something new, made from both of us.”
then get out of the
alert. This is Platinum at its most recognisable, Indeed, the two studios’ styles are not player’s way.”
attuned to the pleasures of movement as conflicting so much as complementary: one
much as the bruising satisfaction of impact. foregrounds precision, the other prioritises

33
 NINJA GAIDEN 4

flair. In Ninja Gaiden 4, this is exactly the highly challenging, but welcoming fresh
point. Combat is no longer solely about players is also crucial. So, while series
control; it’s about rhythm, invention, veterans might skip straight to Master Ninja,
escalation. Has it been easy to get here? “Well, in which enemy placements, AI behaviours
there were no fistfights, if that’s what you and attack patterns are changed to create a
mean,” Hirayama says with a smile. But there more challenging experience, Hero Mode
were points of contention. Chief among them makes a handful of concessions to firsttimers,
was Platinum’s introduction of Bloodraven, a including more frequent checkpoints, a
new mechanic at the heart of the fighting streamlined interface and optional assists
system. The fact it’s now threaded into the such as auto dodge and auto guard, though
game so well represents how Platinum and even these can be disabled mid-game. The Fall out boy
Team Ninja have gradually found synchrony. four difficulty settings might vary in the PlatinumGames brings
Recharged via impressive feats of combat, mechanical details, but the game’s overall to Ninja Gaiden 4 a
Bloodraven temporarily makes both Yakumo effect is unanimous. “Even at the easier familiar structure of
and his current weapon more dangerous and settings, we wanted players to feel the fierce post-mission rankings,
flashy. Attacks become exaggerated and intensity the series is known for,” Nakao says. boss trials and
optional combat
uninterruptible, enemies are staggered more In Nakao’s words, Platinum and Team challenges, which are
easily, and the tempo of battle shifts. It’s a Ninja have fine-tuned Master Ninja mode to accessible via glowing
classic PlatinumGames flourish, both push seasoned players “as far as we could go”. red gates and
indulgent and baroque, but its integration into It’s another example of Ninja Gaiden 4’s ominously blinking
the series’ familiar fighting loop is seamless. elegant harmony: the uncompromising spirit raven statues within
the game world.
of the series remains intact, but pain is no
There are traces of
longer the sole gateway to reward. Even at the
Hero Mode makes a handful most accessible settings, the hallmark back-
FromSoftware’s
Sekiro, too, though
of concessions, including and-forth between offence and defence the tone remains
closer to that of a
endures, while at its hardest, the game
more frequent checkpoints becomes an exacting test of timing,
Saturday-morning
anime than a
adaptability and nerve. The result is a grimdark fable. One
“We didn’t want this system to just perch on difficulty curve that accommodates a broad recurring motif is a
top of Ninja Gaiden’s foundations,” Hirayama range of skill levels, while leaving its sharpest toxic dragon whose
says. “It needed to be woven into them.” edges ready for those who seek them out. petrified corpse has
Ninja Gaiden’s return feels slightly been encased in
Achieving that integration, to ensure
concrete, like a failed
Bloodraven’s power enhanced rather than anachronistic, but also undeniably nuclear reactor,
overwhelmed the game’s delicate balance, revitalising. Where most contemporary action causing an incessant
took months of adjustment and debate. games are driven by scale, featuring vast shower of blood-like
maps, sprawling skill trees and elaborate loot rain to patter over a
While Ninja Gaiden 4 is largely built economies, this one is focused on more concrete-stabbed
Tokyo. The imagery
on distinctive, original game design rules, immediate things: movement and sensation. is at once lurid and
there are nevertheless traces of FromSoftware Its challenge lies not in statistical progression, sincere, a throwback
in the rhythm and execution of boss fights, but in the sharpening of instincts. “There are to a time when
where blocking and parrying have far greater no RPG systems,” Hirayama says, pointedly. videogame bosses
importance. Taking damage will leave a “No levelling, no stat trees. Everything flows were as unsubtle
as a skyscraper.
portion of your health bar marked red, but if through the combat. You win by moving
you manage to land blows in quick succession better, reacting faster. That hasn’t changed.”
you’re able to refill this marked section and In an era when the action genre’s boundaries
restore a little health. You can also replenish are dissolving into hybrids and open-world
your health and boost your attack power excess, this looks to be a game honed to an
using consumable items. exquisite point. A study in refinement over
And there are some allowances for variety and mastery over breadth, it could be
newcomers – the game’s creators want to a keen reminder that, in the right hands,
maintain the series’ reputation for being limitation can be liberating, even radical.

34
TOP While in your weapon’s base
form, you can execute Yakumo’s
Ultimate Technique by holding the
Y button, then releasing it once
it’s been sufficiently charged.
ABOVE After being knocked back by
an enemy, you can quickly regain
your balance with a well-timed
button press, minimising your
vulnerability and allowing you
to quickly return to the action

TOP Blocks will be broken,

so it’s preferable to dodge;
doing so with perfect timing
triggers an invincible state.
ABOVE Press the Y button
against a dismembered
enemy and you’ll trigger an
‘Obliteration’, instantly
executing them. It’s
gruesome, but cartoonishly
so, and in keeping with the
schlock Japanese ninja films
of the ’60s and ’70s on
which the game’s soul, if
not its aesthetic, is based.
LEFT New skills must be
purchased using ninja coins,
which you acquire through
defeating enemies and
spend at ATM-like machines
found across the city

35
 H Y
P E

RESIDENT
EVIL
REQUIEM
It doesn’t take
a Village

Developer/publisher Capcom
Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series
Origin Japan
Release February 27

W
hat defines Resident Evil? After perspectives. Could this be an attempt to draw
almost three decades, the answer in all of the series’ disparate identities, closing
to that question remains joyously the loop ahead of the big day?
changeable. These aren’t games beholden to
any single setting, hero, monster or genre, to This question is front of mind as we
the extent that, in the late 2010s, its identity sit down for our first demo of Requiem –
split cleanly in two. While the seventh but meeting new protagonist Grace Ashcroft,
instalment introduced a new firstperson it’s clear she has rather more pressing issues
approach to survival horror, a parallel track of to be concerned with, given that she’s
releases hewed closer to tradition, revisiting currently suspended upside down, soaked
earlier games in the style of the series’ first big through with sweat, and half-drained of blood.
reinvention: the muscular over-the-shoulder Capcom has described Grace as a more
action introduced by Resident Evil 4. everywoman hero than her predecessors,
That clear divide was muddied a little by working for the FBI but as an intelligence
2021’s Village, which put its gunplay so front analyst. It’s unclear how her current
and centre that at times it essentially became predicament connects to the case we see her
an FPS. Meanwhile, the latter track of releases assigned to in Requiem’s introductory trailer,
reached the game that inspired their approach one involving the death of her mother and the
in the first place. It’s been a good while, then, continuing spree of a serial killer (presumably
since we’ve had a Resident Evil more interested the same one glimpsed from behind in his
in frights than fights. armchair, declaring Grace “the chosen one”).
All of which brings us to Requiem, the But if that footage suggests she’s more used to
series’ ninth game (the ‘q’ of the title working behind a desk than in the field, our
occasionally flickers to become a ‘9’, just as heroine is impressively unfazed by the
letters in the title of its predecessor doubled situation. Within moments of waking up, she
as ‘VII’). Capcom clearly has history on its has pulled the IV’s barb from her veins. When
mind here: Requiem is set for release just the antique receptacle it’s connected to
weeks short of Resident Evil’s 30th anniversary, topples and shatters, splashing its contents
telling a story that takes the series back to across the floor, she simply comments on the
Raccoon City after many years away, with a amount of blood, then slashes at her restraints
choice of both first- and thirdperson with a shard of this newly broken glass.

36
Grace is something of a legacy
hero – her mother Alyssa was a
playable character in 2003’s RE:
Outbreak. That spinoff was the
series’ first foray into co-op,
perhaps reflecting Requiem’s
origins, early in development,
as an online-focused game

37
 RESIDENT EVIL
REQUIEM

Now freed and right side up, we find bound helpless to a chair, as terrible things
ourselves looking through Grace’s eyes at an played out around you; the following year’s
old-fashioned doctor’s office. Light is at Beginning Hour teaser showed off this
something of a premium, and as we fumble firstperson approach, and the Baker residence,
around in the dark, every now and then our more fully. But the point remained: that
heroine puts out a steadying hand, pressing Capcom could build tension and fear within
convincingly against walls and furniture in a just a handful of rooms.
way that’s not just a showcase of technology With Requiem marking the return of RE7
but a reminder of those appendages’ director Koshi Nakanishi, this demo feels like
vulnerability. Village made hay with this kind an intentional callback, echoing the same
of character embodiment, ramping up its message. Even after leaving the doctor’s office,
hand-based violence so far that it became to find the rest of the institute we’re trapped
numbing. But with no ill befalling Grace’s within, it’s limited to a tiny floorplan. In other
hands here, we find ourselves thinking just as games, you might traverse this entire space in
much about the series’ experiments in VR. a matter of seconds, but here it’s stretched out
It’s a medium to which Capcom has shown into half an hour, drawing us back and forth ABOVE There is at least one
remarkable loyalty, but the developer is yet to through the environment with the usual constant in this series: overly
elaborate door motifs, with
confirm whether Requiem will follow Village scavenger hunt of fuses and ornate keys. keys to match. Requiem’s
and RE4 onto PSVR2. Nonetheless, this But more importantly, we never want to institute follows the pattern
demo’s claustrophobic setting and sparse move too quickly, out of fear for what might
The most powerful tool lighting take us back further still – to lurk, listening, in the shadows. There is a
gained during Requiem’s
demo is a Zippo-style Kitchen, the 2015 VR tech demo that first sprint button but tapping it makes Grace’s
lighter. It’s something of teased the existence of RE7. (As foreshadowed footsteps deafening in our headphones. The
a double-edged sword,
however, pushing back the by the styling of its ‘t’ as a ‘7’, kicking off that darkness can be pushed back by turning on
darkness – but at a cost particular titling trend.) There you were desk lamps and ceiling lights, but that’s

38
 The absence of light here
only serves to accentuate
its qualities, whether it’s the
warm glow of your cigarette
lighter or the chalky texture
of moonlight filtered
through net curtains

stepped over too incautiously. These, and the

deep shadows for hiding in, are of course the
tools of a stealth game.

Approaching Requiem this way,

we’re left a little confused about the rules Hair-raising
of its hide-and-seek. More than once, the While the majority
of our time with
monster catches us and tears off Grace’s head
Requiem is spent in
as she crouches in total darkness; at others, a firstperson, we also
hiding spot in which we don’t have a great give thirdperson a try.
amount of faith proves to be enough. Any In this mode, Grace
attempts at throwing the bottle only bring turns out to be an
attention in our direction. So just how incredibly animated
avatar, stumbling
systemic are this beast’s decisions and
woozily after
reactions, and how scripted are its suffering a monster
TOP LEFT A revisit to the uncomfortable in its own way, and we quickly movements? That remains to be seen, but bite. Her hair is
Raccoon Police Department turn them off. After all, such illumination not we can’t deny the power of those moments particularly detailed:
seems to be on the cards.
Thirty years on from the only allows us to see but also be seen. when some parts of it pass by, mere inches light filters through
events of Resident Evil 2, it’s Because Grace, it turns out, shares this from our face, sniffing the air for our presence. its tips to create a
certainly seen better days. sort of ombré halo,
ABOVE This is about as much tight floorplan with a single monster. We Maybe it’s just the fact that this creature’s
inviting you to linger
of the monster as Capcom is don’t have a name for it yet, but the game legs are jointed like those of a horse or a near light sources,
willing to show in visuals at
this point, and fair enough:
reveals it in glimpses: talons, bared teeth, dinosaur, but it brings to mind Jurassic often to the
bringing these things into thin strands of hair, one protruding, squishy- Park’s most memorable velociraptor scene – detriment of Grace’s
the light only saps their looking eye. The best look we get at its health. But that we’re
hold on the imagination willing to risk this
entirety is in moonlit silhouette, doubled over
as it shuffles around, its back still scraping
It’s a stalker enemy, with the danger at all surely
says something about
against the ceiling. In Resident Evil terms, it’s a persistence of Mr X and the the distancing effect
stalker enemy, with all the persistence of Mr X of thirdperson, and
and the looming height of Lady Dimitrescu, height of Lady Dimitrescu the sense of
although it’s hard to imagine even the most embodiment and
scale that is lost.
determined of teratophiles turning this thing taking us back to the kitchen once more.
Perhaps it will make
into an object of lust. This demo, like that one back in 2015, more sense elsewhere
After the higher action quotient of recent gives the impression of a flag planted in the in Requiem, but here
instalments, it’s a strange relief to find that shifting sands of Resident Evil. The sequence the tradeoff just
our only means for dealing with this monster, concludes with a message from the developer: doesn’t feel worth it.
at least in this demo, is evasion and “This is merely the overture to our darkest
One reward of a game that distraction. One of the first additions to symphony”. Indeed, there’s much more of
trades in small spaces and
slow movement: the level of Grace’s inventory is an old medicine bottle, Requiem yet to be seen – including Raccoon
detail that can be lavished which can be thrown to smash noisily against City proper – and rumours continue to swirl
on environments. The horse
statue in this corridor is a
a distant wall; conversely, a patch of broken about what (and who) that might involve.
thing of eerie beauty glass on the floor will reveal your location if Perhaps this game too will be unable to resist
the call to action, and end up straddling the
series’ split identities after all. But for now
Requiem makes a strong argument for the
power of a tight space, a single looming threat,
and a total absence of roundhouse kicks.

39
 H Y
P E

VA M P I R E : T H E
MASQUERADE –
BLOODLINES 2
The Chinese Room’s
sequel brings the Phyre

Developer The Chinese Room

Publisher Paradox Interactive,
White Wolf Publishing
Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series
Origin UK
Release October

T
ake a cursory glance at Vampire: The offers a brisk blend of combat, urban
Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 and you exploration and politicking, all with that rich
might think the game is in thrall to the backdrop of warring vampire clans.
cinematic universe of John Wick. Here is
another violent, noir-adjacent adventure filled In 2021, The Chinese Room realised that
with dapper murderers and delicate alliances. the combat had to be its initial focus. The
It’s set in a world in which a complex network Brighton-based studio had made its name with
of secret organisations exists beneath the narrative games featuring stories strung
polite urban layer that the rest of us navigate through elaborately realised surroundings. It
every day. And yet, if you go back to 2004’s was not known for its prowess with action.
Bloodlines, not to mention the tabletop RPG And yet, from the moment Bloodlines 2’s main
game it’s based on, all this is in there too. protagonist Phyre emerges from a century-
When he was first approaching long nap, they’re thrust into a world of melee
development on Bloodlines 2, Alex Skidmore, combat. It’s both kinetic and deeply tactical,
the game’s creative director at The Chinese with Phyre often outmatched against
Room, did indeed go back to the original. He opponents who cluster in tight spaces such
identified this intricate social landscape as the as alleyways and repair shops.
heart of the idea. “When I played Bloodlines, it “The way Phyre fights was largely driven
took me a while to get really what it was,” he by [their status as] an elder,” senior game
admits. “And then I got it. It’s the dialogue designer Max Bottomley says. “We wanted to
trees, the story, the characters, the politics.” really focus on the sort of vampiric elements
The series had been on a difficult journey of that.” This means a system in which combat
by the time Skidmore got involved. The first gives you a range of regular opportunities. “A
Bloodlines is beloved, but it was overly lot of what you’re doing is managing threats,
ambitious and had shipped in an unfinished managing how many people can see you, how
state. The sequel was announced in 2019 only many people can hurt you at any one point,”
to change developers in 2021, moving from Bottomley says. “So you’ve got tools not just
Hardsuit Labs to The Chinese Room. Playing for damaging people, but also for pushing
through the current build, which covers the people away and pulling them towards you.”
early missions, what’s surprising, then, is how Phyre’s approach to combat is further
confident it feels. Bloodlines 2’s opening act dictated by the clan you’ve chosen. Brujah,

40
The Chinese Room refers to
Bloodlines 2’s dual protagonists
as a kind of “odd couple”.
Phyre is powerful, with a
deadly reputation, and Fabien
playful. It allows the writers
to create a serious narrative
with a touch of pulpy fun

41
 H Y
P E

VAMPIRE:
THE MASQUERADE –
BLOODLINES 2

for example, is known internally as the action- been extended upwards, and alleys are more
brawler clan, and has a beatdown move that shadowy. The team’s scaled the city around
allows you to subdue enemies quickly. Phyre and their traversal powers. “We want
Tremere, meanwhile, offers a range of skills Phyre to be able to run through the city really
that encourage you to attack with vicious fast,” says level designer Cat Martins. “So if
precision and remain at a distance. There are you do get caught doing something naughty,
also vampiric elements such as a blood- you need to be able to hide from people
sucking finishing move that refills health, and looking at you.” The solution has been to create
telekinesis that extends to manipulating your two cities within one: a street-level city that
enemies’ weapons. And there are nods to the offers regular access to a city of rooftops
series’ origins in the midst of combat. “When above it. “You can very quickly go to rooftops Monster
you use targeting, the game slows down,” and look down to find your next meal,” Martins
mash
Bottomley explains. “That’s part of trying to says. “You can very quickly go from rooftop to
The violent melee
emulate the feeling of when you play tabletop. rooftop. You can glide across gaps. You can go combat isn’t the only
You’ll be in a situation, and you want to take a super-fast if you get the momentum.” surprisingly visceral
moment. Having that in there was a big part aspect of Bloodlines 2.
of giving the player the opportunity to take Intriguingly, Phyre’s not alone in The Chinese Room has
those beats at their own pace.” this space. One of Bloodlines 2’s biggest also done a brilliant
job of making Phyre’s
It’s not all combat, of course. Early missions changes to the series takes a while to come
traversal feel tactile,
involve a freshly awakened Phyre moving into focus during our demo. It concerns the whether it’s a lunging
around Seattle to meet the people who run fact that, when Phyre awakens, there’s a voice double-jump up a
in their head. It’s another vampire, Fabien, drain pipe or the act
who seems to be under the impression he’s a of pulling a padlock
“You can very quickly go film-noir detective. Fabien took time to come off a door with a
brisk snap of the
to rooftops and look down into focus for The Chinese Room, too. “Fabian
wrist. It’s a muscular
was initially a Thin Blood,” Skidmore explains, take on the vampire
to find your next meal” referring to a weaker group of vampires. “But world, and it’s quietly
the two characters were too similar. We need intoxicating. The team
this dark world. Phyre is powerful; they have a foil. We need an odd couple.” explain how this
credibility and fame. Their status and abilities The team’s response was to make Fabien approach to traversal
helps to characterise
are a double-edged sword, however. All a Malkavian, a member of a slightly spooky,
Phyre as an
vampires are bound by the Masquerade: they unreliable clan. They also made him an experienced, elder
can’t make non-vampires aware of their innocent. “Fabien will be curious about vampire at the start
existence. Super-powered movement and everything,” Skidmore says. Fabien’s at the of the adventure. And
bloodletting must all be done out of view of opposite end of vampire society to Phyre, it also ties into the
civilians, since being identified as something something players discover during his own game’s Masquerade.
After all, it’s hard to
inhuman will trigger a deadly response. missions, which unfold when Phyre’s sleeping have these powers
There are lots of opportunities to be off a night of combat. Dispatched across the and not want to use
identified. Individual missions may unfold in city on a series of investigation challenges, them – and yet if you
hotel penthouses and underground bars, but Fabien can’t fight, and must rely on powers use them in public
much of the fun comes from simply criss- that help him persuade and trick the people too often, you’re
going to get caught.
crossing Seattle. Bloodlines 2 begins in a he’s talking to. He gets less respect than
downtown area modelled on Pioneer Square. Phyre, and must work harder because of it.
The avenues are locked in an eternal Even so, he feels crucial to the game’s
Christmas Eve, by the looks of it, with lights emerging personality. If it’s the work the team
in the windows and snow underfoot. “The has put into combat and the open world that
team that built our Seattle mainly used the makes it a Bloodlines game, it’s tempting to
references that we inherited from Hardsuit,” see Fabien as that secret ingredient that
The Chinese Room’s Alex Skidmore says. “And [then we used] a lot of makes Bloodlines 2 a game by The Chinese
Skidmore (creative director), Google Earthing in every single way.” Room. “It’s light and dark,” Skidmore says,
Max Bottomley (senior game
designer) and Catarina
The end result is a series of urban biomes. explaining the thematic richness in the
Martins (level director) Streets have been tightened, buildings have partnership. “We fell in love with him.”

42
MAIN The urban night is
filled with low-level enemies
that prove surprisingly
dangerous in packs. This is
a game in which half of the
battle is deciding where
and how to enter it.
FAR LEFT Surprising a pair
of ghouls like this is only a
good idea if you can put one
of them down very quickly.
Every clan has a couple of
ways for pulling this off.
ABOVE The characters you
meet are often memorable
presences, often with faces
that suggest long and
storied lives. Interactions
involve managing other
people’s opinions of you.
LEFT Lighting effects are
wonderfully atmospheric,
and allow the game to hop
between the present day
and the early 20th century in
a fairly harmonious fashion

43
 Developer Alt Shift
Publisher Dotemu
Format PC
Origin France
Release TBA

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA:
SCATTERED HOPES
The sound of Cylons

M
emories of the most recent TV The result is Battlestar Galactica:
version of Battlestar Galactica may Scattered Hopes, a Roguelike RTS that gives
have faded in recent years, but not you command of a fleet and runs parallel to
for Alt Shift. Indeed, when the studio created events of the 2000s TV reboot. Your aim is
its 2019 space strategy game Crying Suns, it to flee the relentlessly pursuing Cylons, the
already had the adventures of Commander destroyers of much of humanity, hoping to
Adama and co in mind. “When we created catch up with the Galactica itself. The
Crying Suns, our fantasy was to make a game personnel are different from those in the Visual elements such as
costume design take the
where you can embody the role of Adama,” TV show, then, although fans should TV show into account, as
Frédéric Lopez, Alt Shift’s CEO, explains. encounter familiar names along the way. does the music. “We tried to
keep its DNA, but modernise
“We didn’t have the licence, so we created it into something more
In Preparation Mode, another universe. Now we’re able to do the Having been told to expect a challenge, electronical,” Lopez says
emergencies such as fires game we wanted to do.” Working with we don’t hold out much hope – scattered or
can pop up at any time,
and should be attended to
Dotemu, Alt Shift now has the seal of otherwise – for our first time with the game.
sooner rather than later approval from Universal Studios. There’s a lot to learn early on, but fortunately

Alt Shift co-founders Julien

Cotret and Frédéric Lopez

44
Alt Shift wants to inject a we’re not in immediate danger. Each stage of a on. The main inspiration for this part of the
story into its sci-fi space run is split into two phases: a management game is the first episode of the TV series,
battles, and for Cotret the
TV show provided the phase during which you fortify your fleet; and 33, in which the crew of the Galactica tries
perfect material for the job a Cylon assault that you must simply survive desperately to keep the ship ahead of frequent Finding
until your FTL drive kicks into action and you Cylon attacks. “It’s impossible to breathe,” your fleet
can zip away, before the cycle repeats. Alt Shift CTO Julien Cotret says. “We wanted With each battle
During that first phase, you can perform a to replicate that in the game.” To create a taking place in the
limited number of actions. Repairing damage greater sense of urgency, the hexagonal grid vacuum of space, we
wonder how Alt Shift
from previous escapes is an obvious priority, of Crying Suns has been erased, ships now
will inject variety into
moving freely across space. Scattered Hopes. For
It works, as battles quickly become Cotret, one answer
“It’s tough because we want exciting. Yes, you can pause the action to lies in the setup of
to have this feeling that it was issue commands to your large vessels and your fleet and
weapons, different
tiny fighters, but nothing happens until you
a very close call every time” unpause again, the Cylons chipping away at
types of which will
unlock over time.
your shields, the clock ticking down all too With the default fleet,
but you also need to ensure you have fuel for slowly. It’s been tricky to get the tension in for instance, it’s often
FTL jumps, a supply of nukes to stem the these battles just right, Cotret admits, prudent to park your
enemy tide when your fighter ships are because the combat is asymmetrical. “It’s fighters in front of
your large ships to
overwhelmed, and scrap for upgrades that much easier to make a game where you have
protect them as
become increasingly important as the Cylons to annihilate the enemy,” he says. “It’s tough enemies arrive. “The
grow in strength. You can also assign one of because we don’t just want to balance it, we second [fleet] is the
a few ‘VIPs’ to a task to boost its outcome, want to have this feeling that it was a very opposite,” Cotret
which in turn grants experience and broadens close call every time.” explains. “You have
their skill set. After levelling up for the first Of course, the reverse of this scenario is a huge incentive to
attack the Cylons as
time, for instance, we can assign one to pilot that you don’t quite make it, as we find out
soon as they pop up.
You’re vastly outnumbered a Viper fighter ship, increasing its efficiency. to our cost on our second battle – one of It’s a completely
in battle, but as a human our three main ships dissolves under fire different play style.
you can strategise and
set priorities, which the
All this is very much the calm before the mere seconds before a jump. If that damages If you let some units
Cylons are unable to do storm: once the Cylons appear, the pressure is our chances of success, though, that’s all part go past your defence
of the process. Comfort comes from the line, you’re in deep
trouble.” There will be
modern Roguelike formula of permanent
end-game challenges
upgrades between runs, which should offset too that should boost
the tension of the experience and its tough replayability, he adds,
choices. “You will make bad decisions,” Lopez but he’s not about to
says. “That will [cause] complications for you spoil the surprise.
in combat, and most of the time you will lose.”
A harsh warning, perhaps, but if it recreates
the atmosphere of Battlestar Galactica, we
won’t begrudge the challenge.

45
 Developer Bleakmill
Publisher
Headup Games
Format PC
Origin Germany, UK
Release TBA

INDUSTRIA 2
Turning a minor FPS hit into a survival-horror sequel

T
here’s a reason the first Industria ends so the return journey has a different rhythm.
so abruptly. Inspired by the post-Soviet There’s no run-and-gun, but if you use
aesthetic and physics-based puzzles of throwable lures and smart positioning, you
Half-Life 2, Bleakmill’s debut was initially can exterminate your enemies one by one.
going to be separated into shorter, successive And there’s another nice detail: to aim down
episodes – also in the style of Valve’s shooter. the sights of your weapon, you press one key
But David Jungnickel and Steve Chapman, to lift it to the ready position and another to
the studio’s founders and the core of its small bead down the barrel, effectively doubling the
development team, decided there was enough amount of effort it would normally take in a
material to justify a complete, standalone videogame to shoot a gun accurately.
release. It just meant packing all the narrative “We wanted to make the combat slower,” Trial and
payoff into one sequence. “We messed up a Chapman says. “When you look at games like error
little with the ending of the game,” Jungnickel Resident Evil and Silent Hill, they have these While it takes place
says. “You get a lot of information, very fast.” cumbersome mechanics to make you feel in the same world,
While not a big hit (“It’s a seven out of more vulnerable, and that’s what we wanted with the same central
ten, you know?” Jungnickel says), if you played to lean into. You’re not a super-soldier. We character, Industria 2
Industria in 2021, you’d have sensed that want that to be in the design.” is a very different
game to the original.
Bleakmill was onto something. It felt like the “Slower-paced makes so much more sense
Chapman and
debut of an imaginative new studio. Industria for a game with our production bill,” Jungnickel Jungnickel explain
2 characterises how Bleakmill’s approach to continues. “If we’re doing this high-fidelity that player feedback
games has changed since 2021. game, let’s do small stuff, like room by room, on the first Industria,
While strictly speaking Industria 2 is an and not a whole city like the first Industria.” plus their own
FPS, it has more in common with Alien: reflections, convinced
them to head in a
Isolation, Resident Evil 7 and the wider As in classic survival-horror games, new direction. “The
Frictional oeuvre than with Half-Life or Doom. where every strength is also a weakness (you biggest critiques that
have a gun, but if you use it, the monsters we got were about
might hear; you have the power to save, but the combat,”
There’s only a small number only if you risk backtracking to collect an ink Chapman says. “We
originally designed
of enemies, but every one has ribbon and take it to the typewriter), Industria
it without combat, a
2’s design is clear and economical. The motion
the power to kill you quickly tracker, for example, will give you a rough
bit more like Soma,
where you’re not
impression of where enemies are located, but fighting anything.
Ammunition is scant, but each bullet is deadly; the battery runs down quickly and if you’re But we had to find
there’s only a small number of enemies, but holding it, you can’t hold a gun. ways of making the
midgame more
every single one has the power to kill you Every element feels like it’s been revised
interesting, so then
quickly. We’re playing the latest build, which and cut back to accentuate the core elements. we added the combat
Jungnickel explains represents the first time Bleakmill’s goal is to eradicate filler, to keep and people critiqued
that all the game’s central components the story moving and not dwell in a single it, quite fairly. For
(combat, sneaking, crafting, exploration) have environment or overextend a combat section Industria 2, we
been seamlessly tied together. For the first just for the sake of game length. “It’s a lot of wanted to modernise
our design. But it’s
half, while we’re searching for a missing work,” Jungnickel concludes, “but there are so
still very easy to
component to open an electronically locked many people talking about this idea that there get it very wrong –
door, we have to remain silent and unseen, should be shorter games that I feel reassured just going back
slinking past Videodrome-style cyber-flesh that it’s totally fine. With bigger studios, if two weeks, players
abominations as if playing Soma. However, you mess up just one time, you can be hated some parts
Bleakmill co-founders
when we find the part we’re looking for, we screwed. We think making smaller games with of this build.”
Steve Chapman and
David Jungnickel also find a shotgun and a handful of shells, and fewer people seems smarter nowadays.”

46
 LEFT The futuristic city of
Industria 2 has been
completely overrun by a
malicious, self-perpetuating
supercomputer named Atlas.
BELOW By design, guns are
cumbersome and have a
very small amount of
ammunition, so combat
feels appropriately tough

ABOVE Rather than having

the wide-open outdoor
environments of the first
game, Industria 2 is built
around claustrophobic and
highly detailed interiors.
RIGHT Bleakmill wants to
make a “filler-free journey”
with a play time lasting
between four and six hours

47
 Developer
Outerloop Games
Publisher Outerloop
Games, Outersloth
Format PC
Origin US
Release 2026

D O S A D I VA S
From thirsty to hungry

T
he fishing village we arrive at in Dosa
Divas would be quite idyllic were it not
for all the billboards spoiling the scenery.
Nor does it bode well that the villagers have
lost the ability to sustain themselves on the
region’s natural produce. It’s all the result of
Lina’s Meals, an unscrupulous company that
has got the village hooked on its ‘efficient’
fast food in toothpaste-like tubes, and is now
threatening to withhold the supply unless it
is given control of the fisheries. Fortunately,
sisters Samara and Amani aren’t merely
capable of clearing out the corporation’s
soulless suits, they’ve also got the skills and
tools to whip up delicious dishes, starting
with the South Indian street food from Dosa Divas also provides an opportunity This more fantastical world
which the game takes its name. to create a deeper RPG system than the one is a lot more abstract than
Thirsty Suitors’ – note the
As a cooking enthusiast, director used in Thirsty Suitors, where the mechanics cube-shaped trees and the
Chandana Ekanayake sees food not only as mostly served as a vehicle for character-driven way the village is essentially
made up of floating islands
an inlet to different cultures but as a storytelling. It helps that the new game is connected by bridges
metaphor for broader ideas. “This game also party-based, so that Samara, Amani and their
has themes of corporatisation versus indie cooking mech Goddess (a kind of Transformer
[culture],” he says. While commercialisation tuk-tuk food truck) can produce different
may seem to provide everything we need, he flavours of food-based abilities to which foes
adds, “when we become more reliant on are vulnerable. The way weaknesses to certain
commercial food delivery methods, I think
we lose some of our culture, as people forget
how to do things themselves.”
Enemies may become ‘stuffed’
As in Outerloop Games’ previous title, if you indulge their cravings,
Thirsty Suitors, for the game’s characters the
conflict is also a personal one. We only see opening them to extra damage
Lina through corporate imagery, her voice
repeating the same brand slogans ad nauseam, food types are revealed and displayed takes
but she is actually Samara and Amani’s inspiration from Octopath Traveler, as does the
youngest sister. As for the fishing village, it’s option to boost attacks. Enemies may also
just one stop on the older siblings’ journey to become ‘stuffed’ if you indulge their cravings,
visit their parents. “I think the emotional leaving them open to extra damage.
stakes seem more interesting to me that way Attack and defence rely on well-timed
when we know it’s a family member,” inputs. Perhaps because it’s still fresh in our
Ekanayake explains. It asks a question about mind, we draw comparisons with Clair Obscur:
Chandana Ekanayake,
the nature of the rift and how it might heal. Expedition 33, but there’s certainly incentive to co-founder and creative
“Hopefully, that’s the fun part for the player.” engage actively with defensive measures, as director, Outerloop Games

48
 LEFT Completing a cooking
minigame has the sisters
revealing their completed
dish in style, though they
may also comment
afterwards on its success
or what might need work

In the loop
While it’s tiresome
to see contemporary
pop culture ascribe
an interconnected
universe or multiverse
to everything, we’re
amused to note Dosa
Divas carries elements
over from Thirsty
Suitors. There’s Uncle
Hinti, once again
taking us through
tutorials, except he
now sports a cyborg
eye in line with this
more sci-fi-styled
setting. And the
trader you can buy
ingredients from has
a knack for suggestive
comments, which
makes us wonder if
he was cut from the
original lineup of
suitors. As it turns out,
he shares a voice actor
with Sergio, the first
With more party-vs-party you receive significantly more damage for not Quests are thus presented as food orders, and ex you meet in the
encounters, battles are previous game. Many
blocking at all than for a mistimed attempt. you must gather ingredients by searching your
more tactical, since you of Thirsty Suitors’
can opt to focus on taking Each party member also has their own surroundings, buying from traders or beating voice cast return,
out one enemy at a time, particular rhythms to learn – Samara, for enemies who drop foodstuffs as rewards. albeit with some
although it might be better
to try to reveal the other example, can land multiple hits on a goon by In Dosa Divas, then, player expression will role reversal – Farah
enemies’ weaknesses too bouncing a boomeranging pot back and forth be as important as the story of family and Merani, once the
with expert timing. culture. Yet food is undoubtedly what holds voice of protagonist
Jala, here becomes
Preparing dishes, meanwhile, involves all these elements together. “There’s tradition
the villainous Lina.
timing-based minigames, with better and connection across generations with food,”
performance yielding extra portions. Goddess Ekanayake says. “I think retaining some of
transports you to a kitchen on the spirit plane, that is important to retaining some identity
where you make meals to consume in battle as of who you are and where you came from,
heals or buffs, but also for other people, and where you’re going.” Judging by the early
especially the villagers who have forgotten taster, Outerloop may have found the flavour
how to cook and don’t own any pots or pans. balance to bring this idea to fruition.

49
 ROUNDUP

MONSTER HUNTER STORIES 3:

TWISTED REFLECTION
Developer/publisher Capcom Format PC, PS5, Switch 2,
Xbox Series Origin Japan Release 2026

FATEKEEPER
Developer Paraglacial Publisher THQ Nordic Format PC Origin Germany Release 2026

It’s time to ride the Rathalos again in a tale about kingdoms

driven to the brink of war. Taking the leap from Switch to
Switch 2, PC, PS5 and Xbox Series, there’s a real crispness to
the cel-shaded renderings of monsters and hunters this time
around. Hopefully the story can spread its wings similarly.

NUTMEG! A DECKBUILDING
RETRO FOOTBALL MANAGER
Developer Sumo Digital Publisher Secret Mode
Format PC Origin UK Release 2026

One of the surprises in THQ Nordic’s August Digital Showcase was this fantasy RPG from new studio Paraglacial. The
announcement trailer focuses on firstperson melee combat in an assortment of ruins and dungeons, suggesting a more isolating
experience than a Skyrim or Avowed. There’s also an emphasis on physics-based reactions, as undead warriors flinch and buckle
under deliberate sword strikes, or ragdoll as you throw them around with magic powers. Some grim execution animations look
much more rehearsed, but still feel part of an effort to make everything seem that bit more alive before you render it dead.

ONCE UPON A KATAMARI

Developer Rengame Publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment
Deckbuilding, football and nostalgia: for some among us,
Format PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series Origin Japan Release October 24
there could hardly be a more enticing strike force. An ’80s
wrapping, complete with Ceefax and sticker books, ushers in
the memories as you manage cards to try to score. And if it
lacks glamour, at least VAR can’t spoil your celebrations.

EARTH VS MARS
Developer/publisher Relic Entertainment (Relic Labs) Format PC
Origin Canada Release 2025

This revival of Bandai Namco’s popular Katamari series is predicated on the destruction of
Earth, which happens thanks to a scroll casually tossed aside by the King Of All Cosmos – if
that’s what it takes, so be it. Fixing this catastrophe sees the Prince travelling through time,
from prehistory (we look forward to rolling dinosaurs up into balls) to Edo-era Japan and According to Relic, its new Labs studio has been set up to try
beyond. Multiplayer Versus modes should be the icing on the typically silly Katamari cake. out different ideas in strategy games, so it’s odd to find that
its first effort is largely a clone of Advance Wars. The demo
tutorial is more of a refresher, and only the concept of splicing
soldier and animal DNA provides new strategic concerns.

50
WELL DWELLER
Developer Kyle Thompson Publisher Top Hat Studios
Format PC, Switch Origin US Release 2026

TROPICO 7
Developer/publisher Kalypso Media (Gaming Minds)
Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin Germany Release 2026

After Islets and Crypt Custodian, Kyle Thompson indulges his

penchant for animal heroes once again with this creepy-cute
adventure. As a small bird armed with a matchstick, you enter
a kingdom of horrifying monsters to save your kidnapped
kin. The NewZealand Story meets Dark Souls? Bring it on.

OCTOPATH
TRAVELLER 0
Developer/publisher Square Enix (Team Asano) Format PC, PS4,
PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox Series Origin Japan Release Dec 4 Another few instalments and Kalypso’s long-running Caribbean dictator sim may rival the late
Fidel Castro himself for longevity. For now, though, Gaming Minds is focused on complexity,
as you zoom into the lives of individual citizens, between building, terraforming and tweaking
the national constitution. All this incredible detail seems to have sobered the tone, however.
And should a dictator have to do all this for themself? Surely that’s what lackeys are for.

THE ADVENTURES OF ELLIOT: THE MILLENNIUM TALES

Developer/publisher Square Enix (Team Asano) Format PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox Series Origin Japan Release 2026

To please turn-based RPG fans who aren’t so keen to take

Elliot on an adventure (see right), Team Asano offers more of
its signature series in the shape of this prequel. You’ll now get
to create your own character and rebuild your home town,
adding a more personal flourish to the usual expeditions.

GOODNIGHT UNIVERSE
Developer Nice Dream Publisher Skybound Games
Format PC Origin US Release November 11

Square Enix deepens its commitment to HD-2D not only as a visual style but an RPG lineage to exist alongside its triple-A
offerings. With Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy ticking off their own subgenre boxes, The Adventures Of Elliot fills the
niche of the old-fashioned action JRPG. The Legend Of Zelda and Secret Of Mana are obvious touchstones, and we soon feel the
texture of both as we swish our blade at unruly tufts of grass and angry wildlife alike. With cracked walls to bomb and a talking
Babies rarely make compelling player characters, but we look fairy as a companion, though, it’s Nintendo’s history, rather than SquareSoft’s, that may ultimately be the dominant factor.
forward to filling the nappy of Isaac, a six-month-old with
burgeoning psychic powers. The game reacts to your facial
movements via your webcam as you manipulate Isaac’s home
in ever more bizarre ways, trying not to freak out his family.

51
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52
VIDEOGAME CULTURE, DEVELOPMENT, PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY

78

108

70

54 Rally Point 54
64 Here Comes A
New Challenger
64 70 Second Life

78 The Making Of…

Expelled!

82 Studio Profile:
Strange Scaffold

108 Time Extend:

It Came From
The Desert

82
 R A L L Y

Game Battlefield 6
Developer/publisher EA
(Battlefield Studios)
Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series
Release October 10

54
Why EA is razing Battlefield
to its foundations in order
to build something new
BY ALEX SPENCER

55
 ABOVE Each class
comes with one
predefined gadget
plus two slots, and a
perk on a ‘signature’
weapon. The Engineer,
for example, has
better hip-fire
accuracy with SMGs.
LEFT Vehicles can
become a mobile
focal point for battles,
not least since dead
teammates can
respawn on them.
FACING PAGE The
singleplayer campaign
follows a single Marine
unit, Dagger 1-3

56
 RALLY POINT

R
ebecka Coutaz joined DICE in
November 2021, just two weeks
after the launch of Battlefield 2042.
“It’s crazy, when you come in like that, as
the new GM of a studio, and you haven’t
been on the journey of the previous game,”
she says. “It’s probably the hardest thing
I’ve done in my career, for sure – but a joy
as well.” Such a situation would be
challenging no matter what the studio, no
matter what the game. But by 2021, 2042’s
journey had been anything but smooth.
At launch, the game was greeted by the been working on a game,” Coutaz says
worst reviews in series history, a precipitous when we ask. “But what I can say is, I was
dropoff from its immediate predecessors. It not the only one who came on board at that
was a sentiment echoed by the players: at time.” She’s talking about Vince Zampella,
one point 2042’s Steam user reviews were the COD co-creator and Respawn chief who
among the ten worst on the entire platform, was appointed as the overall head of
and within two months of release its player Battlefield weeks after 2042’s launch, and
Rebecka Coutaz,
numbers had dropped below that of the SVP Byron Beede, a former Destiny and general manager,
already three-year-old Battlefield V. COD exec at Activision who moved over DICE & Criterion
“It was a difficult time,” Coutaz says. earlier that year. It’s worth noting that,
“We had a lot of expectations from the around the same time, EA hired Halo
community and the players who have been co-creator Marcus Lehto to lead Ridgeline,
with us for decades. So we owed some a new studio working on Battlefield’s
things to them – and, of course, to our singleplayer campaign; he departed early
teams as well.” Why the teams? “They in 2024 and the studio was closed shortly
were disappointed on Battlefield 2042, too. afterwards – a development Coutaz is not
And, across all the studios, they did not willing to comment on.
want to allow this to happen again.” These personnel changes are indicative
One of the challenges that faced Coutaz of just how much EA is putting behind the
was rescuing the game’s reputation. After new Battlefield. On a recent earnings call,
seven seasons of DLC, and much tweaking, CEO Andrew Wilson said EA was going
“the game is in a completely different state “all-in as a company” on the game, and
than when we released it,” she says proudly. that more had been invested in it “than any
“We still have a lot of players playing.” (The Battlefield product before it”. In July, Ars
game has also clawed back its Steam rating Technica reported that the projected budget
to 48 per cent positive, while its average was “well north of” $400 million, which
player count remains just behind that of would put it among the most expensive
BFV.) The importance of the mission to save game productions of all time.
2042, though, was soon eclipsed by the Naturally, when we ask Coutaz about
question of where Battlefield would go next. the scale of the project, she is tight-lipped:
It’s not entirely clear at what point the “I cannot share any numbers except the fact
development of Battlefield 6 began – “we that we are four studios. You can imagine.”
never share the length [of time] that we have These four are Battlefield creator DICE, in

57
RALLY POINT

Stockholm; its LA sibling, now rebranded community and to the teams. That is my
as Ripple Effect Studios; veteran UK studio drive. That’s why I’m here.”
Criterion; and Motive, which before its
remake of Dead Space collaborated with For all the newcomers to Battlefield’s
the other teams on Star Wars Battlefront II. leadership – and the departure of many
The four are now united under the of those involved in the early days – the
single, continent-spanning banner of BF6 team does have at least one link back
Christian Grass, Battlefield Studios. “I spent a decade at to the classic that is Battlefield 1942,
general manager,
Ripple Effect Ubisoft before joining EA,” Coutaz says. released a quarter of a century ago. Then a
“There, many studios work on each brand, programmer, Christian Grass is now VP and
in a co-development system, and I would general manager of Ripple Effect. He has
say that that is what we’re doing on been involved in BF6 since its inception.
Battlefield [Studios] as well.” “The first thing we thought about was,
It’s not clear where each studio’s ‘What’s the era? What’s going to be the
individual focus is directed, but together they tone, and the feature set?’” Grass says.
are developing BF6 as a game of many “And we very quickly rallied around this
parts. As well as PvP multiplayer – the only idea of going back to modern times. We’d BF6’s helicopter controls have
aspect that EA is willing to discuss in-depth done historical, we’d done near-future. It proved a point of contention,
for this feature – there’s a vastly expanded had been more than a decade [since BF4, with DICE promising it’s taking
“a large pass” after the beta
version of 2042’s Portal user-creation tools, the previous modern-day instalment], so
a singleplayer campaign, and an as-yet- now we wanted to go back to that.”
unrevealed multiplayer mode developed by No wonder, given the size of the
Ripple Effect. The latter represents “a brand- audience commanded by military games set
new experience for Battlefield,” Beede said in the present day (or, in BF6’s case, close
at the reveal event. Given his involvement in to it – 2027). The likes of Counter-Strike 2,
COD Warzone, and Zampella’s in Apex Rainbow Six Siege and Delta Force roost in
Legends, it seems likely to be the long- the upper echelons of Steam’s most-played
rumoured battle-royale iteration. chart, but the elephant in the room is COD,
It’s hard to judge the overall package at its dominance having been established with
this point, of course, but Coutaz emphasises the pivot of 2007’s Modern Warfare. DICE
that everything is pushing in a single would follow it with 2011’s Battlefield 3, a
direction. “When Byron and Vince came on game that sold 8m copies in its first month.
board, they had a very clear vision of what “Other settings have worked really well
they wanted to do with the franchise,” she for us, like World War One,” Grass says.
says. This vision seems to involve digging “Who would have known you could build
back into Battlefield’s history, as a way to such a successful game set in that era? But
correct course after the missteps of 2042. the modern era comes with familiarity. It
As for her own personal objective, feels more real. People know the hardware,
Coutaz tells us that since joining up in the vehicles.” Of course, there’s a darker
2021, she has “felt an obligation to side to that familiarity, too.
create one of the best Battlefields the Watching BF6’s reveal, it’s a little
world has ever seen. I owe that to the uncomfortable to hear Motive’s Philippe

“ T H E M O D E R N E R A C O M E S W I T H F A M I L I A R I T Y.
IT FEELS MORE REAL. PEOPLE KNOW THE
H A R D WA R E , T H E V E H I C L E S ”

LEFT In most modes, you’re free

to mix and match firearms, so
even medics can pack a sniper
rifle – a decision that’s proved
controversial with players.
FACING PAGE The Tajikistan-set
Liberation Peak is the most
open of the maps thus far,
with longer uninterrupted
sightlines and wide roads

58
Ducharme pronounce that “the world is on BAD
the brink of war”. The singleplayer trailer OMENS
features a monologue about the collapse of For all the talk about
Battlefield 6 being set in
“alliances that have held since the end of
the modern day, technically
World War Two”, while the event’s climactic that’s not quite true. At least
teaser ends on a shot of fire rippling across not yet – the 2027 setting
will pass from near-future to
what appear to be the hills of Los Angeles. present during the game’s
It’s painfully close to reality. lifetime. Details of its
scenario remain sparse,
You could interpret all of this as a sign. beyond the fact that
Perhaps the Battlefield teams just have their unspecified “major
European countries” have
fingers on the pulse of geopolitics and BF6 pulled out of NATO. It’s clear,
is a well-timed work of speculative fiction. too, that there has been
But whenever we raise this, our interviewees some kind of invasion on
US soil, a plot point that
point out that the game has been in unfortunately resonates
development for many years, and that any with the kind of jingoistic
paranoid fantasies stirred by
likenesses are purely coincidental. the current President. We’re
“We are making an entertainment told the nations backing
PMC Pax Armata, one of the
product, right?” Grass concludes. “Of game’s two factions, will
course, we’ve drawn inspiration from history become apparent during
and the real world, but at the end of the the singleplayer campaign
(there’s no continuity,
day, it’s all about entertainment. We are apparently, with BF4’s ‘War
focused on making sure that it’s fun, that it Of 2020’ timeline, which
pitched the US against
looks great, it feels great. Those are the Russia and China). With
things we care about.” that aspect currently under
wraps, we can’t make an
accurate judgement on
Soldiers advance in the rumbling BF6’s politics – or at
least, again, not yet.
shadow of a tank, using the vehicle’s bulk
as a shield. Other troops cling to the tank’s
sides and rear, apparently unbothered by
the explosions that crumple the hull. It’s

59
RALLY POINT

one focal point in the wider chaos – “only-in-Battlefield moments”. It’s a phrase
shrapnel flashing across the open streets, he first deploys as he explains why, despite
a rival tank ploughing through a building – the ambitions of BF6, and the infusion of
a chaos that stretches beyond the current talent associated with its competitors, the
area of operations and into a skybox that creative director isn’t looking beyond the
periodically fills with fire and smoke trails. series’ own history for inspiration.
This large-scale spectacle is thrilling, but “For me, there’s no other game like
within it, smaller, emergent stories can Battlefield,” he says. “So it doesn’t help to
bubble up. We spend a couple of minutes look at another game and say, ‘Well, this
locked in a tense sniper battle, taking turns works there’ – OK, but they don’t have these
to peek over cover and fire a quick shot – five things to consider. From my perspective,
but the rounds are powerful enough to peel when we’re sitting and talking about
away concrete, turning it into a kind of direction for these things, what they need
masonry strip poker. to accomplish, it’s exclusively in terms of
At the outset of one of our first matches, Battlefield, our own past, that I’m looking to.”
we follow another player to a helicopter Andersson has been around for much
parked at HQ. As they clamber into the of that past, having joined DICE in 1992.
cockpit, we take the gunner’s seat, and wait It was a partnership that began with
for takeoff. And wait. We imagine the pilot Benefactor, a Lemmings-style 16bit puzzler ABOVE Asked about the
checking the manual, trying to figure out the he’d co-created, running through the studio’s inclusion of the game’s US
locations, Grass says such
controls. It’s only after we take our leave, pinball and racing titles of the ’90s and decisions are “driven more
hoping to catch up to our compatriots early ’00s before taking the role of lead from a gameplay and
variety point of view,
already speeding off into the fray, that the designer on Mirror’s Edge and eventually versus the consequences
helicopter roars into life. Chasing impotently rolling onto this series with Battlefield 3. of the narrative wrapper.”
BELOW The brownstones
behind, hammering the ping button to try to Today, he’s Ripple Effect’s creative director.
and jazz murals of Brooklyn
catch a ride, we have a front-row seat for “I consider myself a veteran player of offer a sharp visual
the chopper’s glorious dive over the nearby Battlefield, not just a maker of it,” Andersson contrast to, say, the dusty
sepia tones of Cairo
cliff edge. And for the explosion that follows. says, describing Battlefield 3 and 4 as “my
These are surely what Thomas sweet spot – those games are very special
Andersson means when he talks about to me.” He’s far from the only longtime fan

60
to hold these two games dear. So, when when you have 64 connections to think
circumstances demanded the developers about – but, according to Grass, that’s not
“really do right by our players, and right by the primary reason for these limits. “If you
our franchise,” as Grass puts it, it made could destroy everything, once there’s
sense to create “a spiritual successor.” nothing left, then the game wouldn’t be fun.”
Battlefield has tried that approach in
There’s at least one aspect of those the past, Andersson points out: “In Bad
inspirations, however, that Battlefield Studios Company 2, it was a little bit more ‘what
isn’t clinging onto: ‘Levolution’. BF4’s if you could destroy all these freestanding
headline gimmick, it described a style of buildings, without anything remaining?’”
environmental destruction that focused on Instead, Battlefield 6’s destruction tech uses
scripted set-pieces, so that players could fell “what we now call the apple-coring system,
entire multistorey buildings or break dams to where we make sure that gameplay spaces
cause flooding. “We love the spectacle of always have cover, and are always
that destruction – it looks awesome, sounds interesting to fight around.”
awesome, it’s really cool,” Grass says. “But
we want it to serve a gameplay purpose.” Elsewhere, Battlefield 6 is winding
The official terminology for BF6’s back the clock on decisions made for
approach is “tactical destruction” (a term 2042. Experiments with hero-shooter-style
which at least has the benefit of not being a ‘specialists’ have been ditched in favour of
limp portmanteau). “We want people to be a more traditional class system, with a few
flanking by destroying things, to take down minor tweaks. (Andersson’s stated aim is to
a building to eliminate an enemy,” Grass “stop messing around with changing the
says. “We have tanks driving into a building, classes, [and] create something that can be
so that you suddenly have this threat in a sustained for future titles.”) Meanwhile, the
place you thought you were safe.” The maximum number of players per match has
promise seems to be akin to Rainbow Six been reset to 64.
Siege’s destructible environments, played “Look, we try stuff. Sometimes it works,
out on a wider canvas. sometimes it doesn’t. It’s as simple as that,”
But while the spectacle is present and says design director Shashank Uchil, who
correct – we occasionally have to stop and has been at DICE since Battlefield V. “We
gawk, crossfire be damned, as a building’s thought larger player numbers would work –
façade slides off, or a fire escape detaches it just didn’t catch on. It’s like when a band
itself and tumbles like loose Meccano – it’s tries a new sound. Because we like it, but
harder to identify any real utility in the heat then players don’t – and in the end, we are
of battle. With so many combatants in play, subservient to the players. We do what the
there’s rarely an opportunity for this kind of players want.”
wrecking-ball cat and mouse. Better to just That final point is something we hear a
line up the crosshairs and pull the trigger. lot, not just in interviews but during EA’s
It’s made more difficult by the amount of reveal event: that BF6 is for ‘the Battlefield
scenery that is simply unbreakable. Too community’. “There’s no point fighting the
often we launch a rocket at a wall and wait players,” Uchil says. “Battlefield players are
for the dust to settle, only to find that it’s very vocal. They’ll tell you what they want.”
merely left a black mark. Perhaps we’re And how do those messages reach the
using the wrong tools. Tank shells seem to do developers? “We all read the Reddit,” he
the job more consistently, though arguably if says. “Reddit is the number-one source, and
you’re packing that kind of armour such all of us are on there. I don’t post anything,
subtleties of engagement are moot. but I read a lot of stuff.”
BF6 is a visual showcase all round, but
Syncing up physics simulations online If you’re shuddering at the idea of this in particular the tech powering its dust,
is infamously difficult, surely even more so much power being put into the hands of smoke and fire is absolutely best in class

“WE LOVE THE SPECTACLE OF DESTRUCTION –

I T L O O K S AW E S O M E , S O U N D S AW E S O M E . B U T
W E WA N T I T T O S E R V E A G A M E P L AY P U R P O S E ”

61
KILL Redditors, then fear not. Part of the mind” to this feedback, while also knowing
STREAK increased investment in Battlefield has been when to stick to their guns, so to speak.
Whether or not a reported testing this game on a grander scale than “You can’t just let players design for
100m-player target is
accurate, it’s clear that EA’s
ever before. “We decided really early on you,” Andersson clarifies. “That’s not what
investment needs BF6 to that we needed to get software in players’ we’re doing. What we are doing is, if
push well beyond the hands,” Grass says. “Since March we’ve they’re struggling to understand something,
series’ existing fanbase.
Part of the plan to attract had people, in their homes, on their or think that something is overpowered,
“younger players who machines, playing Battlefield 6 and let’s look at that. ‘Why do they think this is
might not have even been
born [when earlier providing feedback to us.” overpowered? Oh, it’s because they don’t
Battlefield titles were This programme, called BF Labs, has understand this thing yet.’ Or maybe
released],” Coutaz says, is
to “provide many different been running once a fortnight for five because the thing that counters it [isn’t
kinds of player experiences months now. “I’ve been in the industry for available to them yet]. We’re not like leaves
which we can’t talk about
a long time, and I’ve never seen this kind blowing in the wind, turning whatever way
yet.” This, presumably, is
where the rumoured free- of methodology being utilised on such a the wind blows. There’s a lot of conviction
to-play battle-royale mode regular basis,” Coutaz says. “Normally, behind these decisions. But there’s always an
comes in. If that succeeds,
is there a risk of players we just do a closed alpha or an open beta, appetite for validating them, a curiosity to
bringing those kill-chasing for example, and it arrives too late, so track the data, take the feedback, and see
habits to BF6’s objective-
based modes? There are we cannot incorporate the feedback.” how we can improve.” And if there’s any
hooks to encourage What sort of things are the BF Labs doubt about the efficacy of this, it’s dispelled
smarter play, from a scoring
system that rewards other
initiative used to test for, exactly? “There’s by the reaction to BF6’s open beta.
contributions to the so much that we’ve been doing, big and
amped-up Support class,
but that doesn’t stop the
small,” Grass says. “Different modes and Our conversations with the BF Studios
beta from attracting its maps and different weaponry, vehicles – team span two weeks, from the reveal event
share of shoot-first learning from that, making tuning and through to the beginning of the game’s
solipsists. This isn’t a major Thomas Andersson,
problem, Andersson argues. balancing tweaks. There’s been a lot of studio creative second beta weekend. During that time, BF6
“If all you want to do is to changes made to the classes and how director at Ripple hits a peak of 521,000 concurrent players
chase kills, there's a role Effect, and DICE
for you in the squad.”
they’re set up.” The most important thing, design director
on Steam alone, making it the biggest beta
he says, is the team keeping “an open Shashank Uchil on the platform to date. After so much

“IN TERMS OF HOW MUCH FUN PEOPLE

S E E M T O B E H AV I N G , W E F E L T P R E T T Y G O O D
A B O U T T H A T. B U T Y O U N E V E R K N O W, R I G H T ? ”

ABOVE With their insta-

reviving defibrillators and
class proficiency with LMGs,
the Support is the surprise
breakout star of BF6’s beta.
RIGHT Looking to test the
limits of the destruction
tech? You need a tank

62
 RALLY POINT

testing, was the team expecting a reaction getting stronger from a teamplay perspective.
of this kind? We’re moving the deploy beacon to Assault
“In terms of player perception and how instead of Recon, to [reinforce] ‘this is the
much fun people seem to be having, we guy to spawn on’. They’re going to be the
felt pretty good about that,” Grass says. one getting behind enemy lines, setting up
“But you never know, right? When these flanks, all that sort of stuff.”
things are launched, there could be things
that catch us by surprise.” In fact, we’re These changes seem to have been in
told, this is part of the reason for doing this motion before the beta. But when it comes
beta in the first place. It’s not merely a to examining hard data collected over these
marketing exercise – successful as it may weekends – of which there is surely an
have been in that respect – or a technical extraordinary amount – is there enough time
stress test, but a way of accumulating yet left to make changes before launch? “We
more player feedback. will react to beta feedback,” Grass confirms.
“BF Labs is incredibly helpful, but this “We probably already have, in some cases.”
is on a different level,” Andersson says. Just hours later, a case in point: BF6’s version
“We just haven’t had that many people of Rush is met with a backlash from players
hammering on the game before. Those irritated to see the mode shrunk to 12v12.
numbers we saw were crazy.” And there’s The developer can’t fix that right away, but
another key difference between this beta it can – and does – tweak the mode subtly,
and the previous tests: “With Labs, it’s the reducing the time that a bomb takes to blow
Battlefield faithful that are coming in and up an objective while the beta is still live.
playing. They’re expecting a certain kind of This update arrives during our final
game. And all of a sudden now you have interview, with Coutaz. Appropriately
all these players where maybe it’s the first enough, she’s explaining why it never pays
time they’re playing Battlefield.” to be confident. “We knew that we had
ABOVE Battlefield is Andersson has seen that firsthand while something. The internal playtesting was
known as a sniper’s
paradise, but the Recon playing in public games: “I’ve seen people crazy – people just kept playing. And then,
seems to be the least- coming in who are [used to] killing being of course, there is the feedback received
played class. “It can feel
like there’s a boatload the only thing you can do, but then starting to from Battlefield Labs and the community
of snipers aiming at understand how they can be most effective councils. But it’s not until you’re out there
you,” Andersson says.
“But the numbers tell
and changing how they’re playing. Not just that you can really confirm it. It’s nerve-
a different story” the speed of how they’re playing, but also wracking. Even for the multiplayer reveal
the roles they take on and the accountability event in LA, you hardly sleep beforehand.”
they take for team or squad success. That’s So, with the beta having broken records
been heartwarming for me to see: ‘OK, they and provoked only relatively minor grumbles,
actually get Battlefield!’ We’ve done a good can the team rest easy? “It’s one milestone
enough job for them to understand what is among many that we need to get us to
required and to make different decisions October,” Coutaz insists. “Of course, it’s
than they would in other games.” a good energy boost for all of us working
Grass has been playing, too. “I don’t on the game. To get feedback that’s more
have those twitch skills any more – I don’t positive than negative, of course, it’s great.
know, maybe I never had them,” he grins. But it’s not over.”
“But I can still make a big difference, right? Given how her time on Battlefield began,
I came in third on the scoreboard yesterday. Coutaz knows all too well how this could
I didn’t have as many kills as some of the go. “In Swedish, we say, ‘Don’t say hello
other players, but I was supporting like before you jump over the river’. And I can
crazy, capturing flags.” tell you, there is no champagne here yet.
Sharing our own beta experiences, and We are savouring the moment. But we are
suggesting that the balance of classes seems not there yet. We cannot allow ourselves
to heavily favour Assault and Support, hubris. We are keeping our heads down,
Andersson counters: “The class system has staying focused and grounded.” Come to
already moved beyond what’s in open think of it, this isn’t bad advice for any
beta.” Assault players can expect “reduced Battlefield newcomer. Stay low, stay
efficiency in some areas,” he says, “but also alert – and always play the objective.

63
64
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HERE COMES A
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he genesis of 2XKO can be traced out players can’t just sit back and smell the roses – even if
back to 2015 and a mostly forgotten your character is wiped out, you can pick the right
game called Rising Thunder. Despite a moment to activate Fury Break for your partner, a
strong gimmick, whereby complex moves comeback buff that increases their character’s damage
were mapped to simple inputs, and a playable and defence, potentially turning the tide of the match.
alpha, when developer Radiant Entertainment was Success also depends on your compatibility with your
bought by Riot Games in 2016, Rising Thunder fell by teammate, knowing when to jump in and extend their
the wayside. Radiant was gone, but its founders, Tony combo, communicating when to tag in and swap roles
and Tom Cannon, who also created Evo, the world’s (which is controlled by the onscreen player) and intuiting
biggest fighting game tournament, still had ambitions. which character is best suited to counter the onscreen
Now employees of Riot, they wanted a new challenge. opponent. It takes some mental recalibration, especially
The result was Project L, a fighting game based on after a long time playing solo, but when you do find
Riot’s immensely successful MOBA, League Of Legends. yourselves in sync, the payoff is extremely gratifying.
On paper it was an exciting prospect, one of the world’s Riot hopes that 2XKO’s team dynamics will double
biggest and most established developers experimenting as a means of creating balance, a way to take the
with a different genre. But Project L’s first public showing sting out of co-op play when one player is clearly more
failed to set the fighter world on fire. It had the characters skilled than the other. Co-op could also serve as a soft
from LOL, but it was essentially a standard-issue 1v1 way of ingratiating newcomers and letting them get
battler, another variation on Tekken, Street Fighter and to grips with the rhythm of 2XKO without the frustration
Mortal Kombat. Tom Cannon, Project L’s producer, hoped of taking a pummelling.
that people would be “jumping out of their chairs”. But director Shaun Rivera also insists this is a
Instead, in his words, the response was more like “fighting game for fighting game players”. Outside of
“interesting – I’ll keep an eye on it”. Unsettled but the various player configurations (solo, duos or mixed),
undeterred, Riot and the Cannons went back to the lab. the Fuse system affords another layer of expression
“It had potential,” Cannon says, “but we just didn’t and team customisation. Essentially modifiers, Fuses
feel like it was living up to the combat fantasy of League provide a range of boosts and special abilities, perhaps
Of Legends, where you have the synergy between allowing you to increase the amount of assist attacks
multiple champions and the talk about compositions – you can use in succession or to deploy two characters’
where you have to coordinate. We felt like if we could super attacks at once.
bring that kind of interaction and that kind of strategy Fuses may also drastically alter your team composition.
to a fighting game, then we could bring something new The Juggernaut Fuse, for example, strips out your second
to the genre. It was a hard decision to kill that version character entirely and buffs one champion with extra
of the game because it was fun. And it was awkward power and defence. The Sidekick Fuse means the
because we announced this thing, and then we took offscreen player can still chip in with assist attacks, but
it back into the shop and went back into R&D mode. But can’t be tagged into the fight proper. In short, while
I think it was the right call.” 2XKO offers inroads for newcomers, the more you play,
the deeper and more complex its systems become.
Six years on, 2XKO is about to arrive in beta form on Given all these mechanics and variables, when it
PC; revised and rebuilt, it’s now a 2v2 tag-team fighting comes to competitive gaming and esports, Riot wants to
game designed around co-op play. Veterans of Marvel Vs let players dictate the primary match setup. “We’re being
Capcom or Dragon Ball Fighterz will grasp the basics wide open,” Cannon says. “I would love it if mixed mode
immediately. If you’re playing solo, you can fight one on became the dominant format, but if that’s not what
one, but also swap between characters on the fly and resonates with players, then we’ll see what happens and
maximise combos by peppering in assist attacks from we’ll see how we can support that.”
your offscreen partner. But when it comes to multiplayer But before questions about formats and play styles can
and co-op games specifically, Riot wants to pioneer really be answered, the game needs to earn a dedicated
a fresh dynamic. competitive playerbase – 2XKO may be a mechanically
Co-op in and of itself isn’t new for fighting games, but rich fighter with a deep affection for its roster, but Riot has
2XKO divides the responsibilities between players in an a battle to win in the court of public enthusiasm.
unusual way. If you’re controlling the offscreen Announced a full six years ago, even the most
character, in addition to launching assist attacks, fervent believers may have forgotten about 2XKO
you have to decide when to use the ‘Break’ by now. We play the game and speak with
meter to interrupt an opponent’s combo. Riot at Evo itself, in Las Vegas, and while
This forces you to look out for and there’s still a queue for the demo booth,
exploit specific moments in every two new tag-team rivals, Marvel
battle. It also means that tagged- Tokon: Fighting Souls and

66
“ I F W E C O U L D B R I N G T H AT K I N D O F LEAGUE
OF THEIR
S T R AT E GY T O A F I G H T I N G G A M E , W E OWN
Mortal Kombat is renowned
COULD BRING SOMETHING NEW” for its crossovers and
collaborations – Rambo, the
Terminator, Homelander and
RoboCop are just a few of
the characters who’ve had
guest spots – and the 2XKO
team are contending with
the prospect of introducing
characters from outside the
Riot Games and League Of
Legends universes. Given
that LOL itself has more than
170 champions, Tom Cannon
believes there is plenty to
work with already – though
he doesn’t completely rule
out the possibility of a
deeper bench. “Every time
we went off to do a non-
League character, we would
miss the opportunity to
build someone’s favourite
lead character,” he says.
“For now, we’re sticking
with the League IP, and
then we’ll see how it goes.”

TOP If you don’t want to

draft in another player to
ease the learning curve for
yourself, 2XKO has the
option for simple inputs
to streamline combos.
RIGHT Ekko, Ahri and Yasuo
are three of the ten fighters
in the beta. While the initial
roster is limited, each
champion possesses distinct
depth – see, for exanple,
Ahri’s array of magic
projectiles and Yasuo’s
stance-based sword swipes

67
 DIGGING “ W E ’ V E G O T T O M A K E A G A M E T H AT
AT T H E
ROOTS P L AY E R S L O V E A N D B E L I E V E I N , A N D
As the co-founder of
Evo, Tom Cannon is well
positioned to fulfil the T H AT I S C O N S TA N T LY G E T T I N G B E T T E R ”
competitive potential of
2XKO. However, Riot’s
attempt to break into the TOP Tom Cannon gets
fighting-game community why other fighting-game
won’t be rooted in firstparty developers have rarely
spectacle equivalent to the adopted a live-service
League Of Legends World model: “It’s like, ‘Hey, we
Championships – at least, built a fighting game and
not initially. “It comes back now we have to put it out
to the core reason why this there and keep it in a great
project exists,” Cannon says. state, with lots of great
“It really stems from Riot’s content forever’. That’s a
sincere admiration of the different kind of muscle.”
fighting-game community. LEFT Between Jinx, Vi and
So, we’re going to start Ekko, 2XKO is capitalising
our esports approach by on the success of Arcane
asking: ‘How do we support to draw in the show’s fans.
events like Evo that exist BELOW (L–R) Shaun Rivera,
all around the world?’ And game director, Tom Cannon,
then, once we see what executive producer, and
that looks like, we’ll see if Tony Cannon, tech lead
there’s an opportunity to
add some unique value.”

68
 HERE COMES A
NEW CHALLENGER

Invincible Vs, are pulling on attendees’ attention. This is, “That’s been a lot of the work that we’re doing,”
after all, the third time that 2XKO has been playable here. Cannon says. “We definitely have the right company for
doing something like that. We’re learning a lot from the
There’s a new champion to playtest – Vi, a League and Valorant teams, but it’s not one-for-one – we
surprisingly speedy powerhouse who can launch attacks can’t just take what works in League and slam it into our
in flurries, and whose cachet among the Riot devout is game. For the first year of launch, I think we have a good
high right now thanks to the Arcane TV show. We’re also first attempt at our idea of a live-service season.
impressed by Ekko, the time-manipulating prodigy who Something I’m really excited about is our skin content,
can teleport and parry projectiles. But while regular which hasn’t been done in a fighting game to the level
showcases and playtests have helped refine 2XKO’s that we’re doing it. We’re going to be learning a lot
combat, the game’s freshness is beginning to wear off, about what kind of skin thematics fighting-game players
and there’s impatience among fans. Many of 2XKO’s are excited by. It might not necessarily be the same things
biggest competitors – the elders of the fighting genre – a League player is excited by.”
are now decades old, and that gives Riot an opportunity According to Cannon, Riot has given the team
to play the plucky, revitalising upstart. But it knows that breathing room to work out these kinds of kinks in the
players are eager for the full, finished game, and 2XKO’s months after launch. “Riot’s been really great for giving us
newcomer energy is starting to dwindle. the freedom to tinker in the early stages,” he adds, “and
And there’s another problem: upon release, 2XKO will then for us to define what our version of a live-service
have only ten playable characters, making its roster fighting game means. How much are we leaning into
significantly smaller than those of Tekken, Mortal Kombat things that Riot has done well in the past? How much are
and Street Fighter. Several former beat-’em-up pros are we bringing new things to the table? And how do we
working on 2XKO – Shaun Rivera placed second at Evo take all this stuff and make something that is right for a
2004, in the Tekken Tag Tournament bracket – but it’s the fighting game player? They’re very patient with us and
first time a lot of them, Rivera included, have spearheaded giving us a lot of support.”
a new game. There’s a lot to do – and a lot to learn. The future of any fighting game also depends on how
“It’s a low number,” Rivera admits, regarding the a developer approaches balance changes; the tightrope
roster. “I do want to call out, though, that we’re a team of between keeping a title fresh yet fair, and mixing fun with
people making a fighting game for the first time in a difficulty, is one that every fighter has to walk. Riot doesn’t
sense, and we don’t have older fighting-game animations want to overcorrect 2XKO. On the contrary, it’s conscious
to reuse or things like that. We’re making our champions of giving players time to learn their favourite characters.
from scratch, and we’re learning as we make them. I think “Internally, we think a year of not balancing the game
we’re getting better over time – Vi is just insane at all skill is just way too long,” Rivera says. “But we also recognise
levels – but we also want to make sure they’re deep and that it takes a lot of effort to learn a character, or two, on
have that discoverable depth. We want to get that a team, and then to learn to make sure that they can play
number up, though, and so we’ve got a lot of champions well together. If you’re patching the game too frequently or
at various stages of development down the pipe that I balancing it too frequently and players are having to
can’t wait for people to see and play. relearn all of that, it’s devastating. So, for us, we really
“I’m excited. I’m also terrified. It’s going to be a little are trying to find where our cadence should be.”
bumpy when we get out. We’re going to make mistakes. As our conversation draws to a close, an effusive roar
We’re the type of team where we want to try stuff. reverberates from the crowd on the show floor, loud
Sometimes it’s going to land and sometimes it’s going to enough that we have to stop talking briefly. This is the
whiff, but we will be trying things. I want to set those sound of the target 2XKO audience, a community that
expectations for players that something we try might go already has love for the League Of Legends champions
wrong or it might not be good, but we’ll address it.” and wants a fighting game where – as in a MOBA – the
Between established competitors, a long hype period action and the internal, spontaneous narrative can flip in
and a limited launch roster, 2XKO is already fighting the heat of a battle. By Evo 2026, the hope is that 2XKO
several battles. But there’s one more: this is a free-to-play will be rubbing shoulders with Street Fighter and the rest.
live-service game. The success of Ubisoft’s Brawlhalla For Rivera, though, nothing is a given.
shows the beat-’em-up genre and the F2P model can “We’ve got to earn that spot. We’ve got to earn the
work in harmony, but 2XKO is meant to find a place right to be there from our players. Our team fully
among the premium, ‘hardcore’ fighting games – believes that. We’ve got to make a game
the old stalwarts. If any studio can make this that players love and believe in, and that
work, it should be Riot. Nevertheless, the is constantly getting better for them over
demands of free-to-play and live time. Nothing is guaranteed, and so
service open up another flank you better believe we’ll work our
where 2XKO may be vulnerable. butts off to try to get there.”

69
 way, discussions began about new content, in the
form of platform-specific endings for the PS4 and
other console versions. A trickle of ideas became a
flood, and a six-month project began to grow.
It’s a story that Stephen Kick, head of Nightdive
Studios, should be able to relate to. Starting 12
illiam Pugh, director of The Stanley years ago with the rerelease of System Shock, Kick’s
Parable: Ultra Deluxe, has a bone to pick aim was to rescue games from obscurity so that
with us. Chatting about the game, we people – not least himself – could play them again.
mention that certain publications, Edge In time, plans for a more radical treatment of System
included, gave a slightly lower score to 2022’s Shock emerged, and a Kickstarter to fund the remake
revamp than the 2013 original, despite all of was successful, but “for better or worse,” Kick says,
its additions. “If the original was nine out of ten, what had been mooted as a fairly faithful rebuild in
and we have completely faithfully preserved that, Unity mutated as the money facilitated grander
how can it be docked points for four years of ambitions. Ultimately, “it abandoned a lot of what
work?” he laughs. At face value, it’s a reasonable made System Shock special,” Kick says. “It started
question. But this also illustrates that the world of looking more like a standard sci-fi game.” That
remakes and remasters often obeys a strange logic. version was scrapped for the final version, built in
That it took four years to create Ultra Deluxe is Unreal Engine but with more modest alterations.
further evidence. Initially, the plan was for Pugh and
Davey Wreden (the creators of the original) simply to Not all remakes and remasters go through such
port The Stanley Parable to PS4, but since it was tribulations. For EA’s Motive Studio, for example, the
made using Valve’s Source Engine, that became a process of recreating Dead Space was a smoother
problem. “We tried getting support from Valve to get ride. Some of the staff had even worked on the
the Source Engine version running on PlayStation, series before, and when discussion began to
and that was a non-starter,” Pugh explains. “So it circulate around EA about reviving the IP, Motive’s
needed an engine transplant.” Once that was under leadership was keen to step in. Executive producer

“W I T H E VE RY M EC H AN IC AN D EV E RY
DESI G N EL E M ENT, TH ER E WO U L D BE
B I G DE BAT ES WI T H I N T HE TEAM ”
4

72
SHOCK TRE ATMENTS
The difference between a remake and a remaster is important,
and neatly exemplified by Nightdive’s System Shock remake and
its System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Edition remaster. In
technical terms, Kick explains, it’s a matter of whether or not
you’re still using the original source code as a base for the new
version, as opposed to creating the game using a new engine and
assets. There’s also a difference between the two from a design
perspective, Khan adds. “We don’t want it to feel like a brand-
new treatment [in a remaster]. We want to keep the aesthetic
feel and ambience of the original game.” In the case of The
Stanley Parable, though, none of the ‘re-‘ words really suit. “The
best we had was ‘reimagining’,” Pugh says, “but nobody knows
what that is.” Sometimes, only ‘Ultra Deluxe’ will do.
“W E WA NT YO U TO F E E L LI KE IT’S THE
G A M E Y O U R E M E M B E R P L AY I N G , N O T
N E C E S S A R I LY T H E O N E Y O U D I D P L AY ”

Having guideline was put in place. “One of the principles of was again a question of being true to the source by
received an this art style was that everything had to look making changes. “Does it still look like Dead Space,
extensive visual
overhaul, Metroid delicious and edible,” Kick says. “Like, if I see this in even though it’s not the same?”
Prime Remastered the world, I want to take a bite out of it. It’s got this There was still a danger of going too far,
blurs the line
between remaster texture and sheen to it that just looks delicious.” however, as experiments with the lighting revealed.
and remake as As for remasters, care must be taken when The original Dead Space had baked-in lighting, so
much as any game.
Final Fantasy
stripping out lower-tech solutions. In the famously when the realtime lighting was switched off, it was
VII is the most foggy Turok, for example, it was no trouble to clear never pitch black. Now, if all the lights were off and
radical remake to the mist, but that triggered unforeseen issues. “As the player was forced to use their torch to navigate,
date, not only in
scope but in the soon as we did that, we noticed that the tops of the they could still barely see a thing, which seemed less
way its nature trees weren’t there,” Kick recalls. “They didn’t bother immersive. The solution was to be more strategic.
as a remake is
incorporated into putting any of the polys in there.” If that wasn’t “Maybe not all the lights go off here,” Campos-Oriola
the original story enough, the challenge was significantly reduced says, “or maybe there’s a window or whatever.”
when the dinosaurs were visible from distance, so By coincidence, lighting was a sticky wicket for
the game had to be adapted to compensate. In the Pugh as well, and while graphical improvement
end, an option was given to enable the fog again. wasn’t a major concern for Ultra Deluxe, a new
A more general rule of thumb is that “we want lighting system was unavoidable. “The auto-importer
you to feel like it’s the game you remember playing, from the Source engine files would give you this
not necessarily the game that you did play,” Kick horrible geometry that would not light-map correctly
says. “The one behind the rose-tinted glasses that ran at all,” Pugh explains. “A real big struggle and point
at 60fps on your N64.” It’s a sentiment that Campos- of friction was getting the game to not look shit.”
Oriola echoes almost exactly when talking about Overall, though, Pugh felt it important to retain the
Dead Space, and it’s fascinating what people Source Engine identity of the game, keeping its
actually do remember. For instance, Dead Space is “creepy backroom aesthetic”, but “just a little bit
seen as a very dark game, and Motive really wanted nicer”. The original was largely a mashup of
to play with that in the remake, using more dynamic retextured and tweaked props from Valve games
lighting. An early art benchmark shown to the such as Portal, Counter-Strike and Left 4 Dead.
community, though, received an unexpected When creating new areas for Ultra Deluxe, then, the
reaction. “They were like: ‘It’s too bright’,” Campos- team adopted “the same approach,” Pugh says, “but
Oriola says. “Then we looked at the original and that with [Unity] Asset Store assets and asset packs of,
corridor was much brighter than what we made.” like, ‘new futuristic office’. Sticking to a cohesive art
direction is the way to go.”
One advantage was that Motive had access to
original concept art, containing details that didn’t
make it into the 2008 game, so the team could
better understand the intention behind the locations.
They also looked again at the films that inspired
Dead Space – Alien, Event Horizon – and how
atmosphere was created in them. “When you look at
these movies, the way they use fog and smoke is
really key,” Campos-Oriola says, “but that was
mostly not present in the original game.” The most
likely reason is that it wasn’t possible then, otherwise
it may have been included, so for Campos-Oriola it

76
 SECOND LIFE

COMMUNIT Y CARE 2

When players are so heavily invested in their favourite games,

it makes sense for the studios remaking those games to
maintain a dialogue with fans, as Motive did with its livestreams
and ‘community councils’ during the development of 2023’s
Dead Space. “We wanted to make sure that we were able to
talk about our approach to the game,” Ducharme says, “how
we’re not coming in with large egos and saying, ‘Hey, we’re
going to do better than the guys originally did’.” With the
decision to make Isaac a speaking protagonist, for instance, in
line with later games in the series, it felt important to explain
the thinking behind it, so it didn’t merely seem subjective.
“I think it was very successful,” Ducharme says, “to create
that relationship with the community about the game.”
 T H E
M A K I N G
O F. . .

E X P E L L E D !
Inkle’s Overboard prequel offered ingenious
innovations – but got a raw deal at launch
BY LEWIS PACKWOOD

Format iOS, PC, Switch

Developer/publisher Inkle
Origin UK
Release 2025

78
T
iny, Cambridge-based indie studio Inkle name Veronica towards the end – even though
has been making narrative-focused the other students call her ‘Ronnie’ throughout the
games for well over a decade. While story. Ingold had to patch up the plot. “I didn’t
the Jules Verne-inspired 80 Days and think of the twist for a while,” he says. “Then we
sci-fi archaeology title Heaven’s Vault were both got to this point where we changed her name to
received with plenty of enthusiasm, it was Verity, and one of the testers pointed out, ‘Well,
murder-mystery visual novel Overboard that if her name is Verity, why is everyone calling her
became one of Inkle’s biggest hits. Ronnie?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know’. But I
Not every Inkle title has been so successful, loved Ronnie so much as a nickname that I
however. Narrative director Jon Ingold says the As well as Overboard and Expelled, Inkle made 80 Days, bodged together some reason for it.”
studio rushed out Overboard because the A Highland Song, and the Sorcery series of text adventures In the completed, released edition of
company’s previous game, 2020’s Pendragon, Expelled, Verity’s roommate, Natalya, can see
had performed so badly. “People didn’t like it,” opening scene, a flash of inspiration gave Ingold into the future, so already knows that Verity will
he says, “and so for the first time since 2012 or the impetus to make Overboard’s followup. change her name. It’s an example of where
something we were genuinely worried about Expelled strays into the paranormal. Ingold also
the company’s future.” “The genesis of Expelled was a conversation credits the “naturally gothic setting” of a 1920s
Nevertheless, when Overboard was on the phone with my aunt,” the director says. boarding school. “While we didn’t want to go
launched in June 2021, having had no prior “She was telling me a story about her time at full supernatural, we definitely wanted that vibe,”
announcement, it went down like a tonic with he says. “So, there’s the teacher that they think is
players reeling from the misery of COVID a vampire, and there’s one of the students who –
lockdowns and in need of something funny and “WE’D NEVER DONE and I don’t know if this came across in the final
feelgood. “We’d never done a shadow drop writeup – but everybody thinks she’s a werewolf.”
before,” Ingold recalls, “but we felt it would A SHADOW DROP From a coding and mechanics perspective,
inject some joy into people’s lives.” Developed in
just 100 days (see E369), Overboard quickly
BEFORE. WE FELT IT the only major addition to Expelled, compared
to Overboard, was the ‘immorality meter’, which
became Inkle’s second-best-selling game. “So,
I immediately started writing a sequel which
WOULD INJECT would fill any time Verity did something naughty.
But the visual design was overhauled. “Technically
was set directly after the events of Overboard,” SOME JOY INTO speaking, it was really quite straightforward,”
Ingold continues. “But it didn’t go anywhere. Humfrey explains. “We were working on how
I couldn’t get beyond the opening beat.” PEOPLE’S LIVES” we could tweak the overall look of the game,
Development on Overboard was fast, giving a sepia-tone look to everything. But we
efficient and focused; considering the possibility school. She told me this thing that her maths also wanted to change it up so that the styling of
of a followup, Inkle’s art and code director teacher did, and it was hilarious. I remember Overboard wasn’t directly transferred over. We
Joseph Humfrey realised it was impossible to walking around my garden in the sunshine in made little tweaks like instead of having the
recapture the magic – the period detective game lockdown, listening to my aunt tell me this story, diagonal dividers [between characters during
was lightning in a bottle. “Obviously you can’t and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s such a brilliant setting’. conversations], there would be vertical ones.
be going at that kind of speed for your entire “A few months later, my aunt died. But by the We changed the overall composition.”
career,” he reasons. “You can’t do that for more time that she died, I couldn’t remember the story “I think we took advantage of the time mostly
than one project at a time, really.” that she’d told me. It had fallen out of my head. to fix the rough bits of the codebase,” Ingold
Instead, the team settled back into making I asked my other aunts, and they didn’t know adds. “There were parts of the codebase where
A Highland Song, which had been in the works what I was talking about. And so I thought, ‘Well, you’re like, ‘Oh my god, how does that even
when Overboard was pitched. But the idea of a if I write this game, maybe the act of working function?’ But [reusing the codebase] definitely
sequel lingered – and Inkle was convinced that through it will bring that memory back up’.” The freed us up to think about graphic design and
the engine it had created for Overboard had project also gave Ingold the chance to explore polish, stuff like the bit where we go into sepia,
more potential. “‘This isn’t the engine for one the backstory of Veronica, a character he had and the bit where we go into film grade.”
game, this is the engine for 100 games’,” Ingold created for Overboard. Ingold didn’t realise it
remembers thinking. Humfrey adds that reusing immediately, but writing for Veronica would The inspiration for the tyrannical Miss
the engine made practical sense, because it indirectly shape Expelled’s entire tone. Mulligatawney came from Roald Dahl’s Miss
would let Inkle focus on developing stories rather In the initial, incomplete version of the game, Trunchbull. “There’s definitely a Matilda inspiration
than “having to create brand-new gameplay the character is named Veronica from the start, throughout the whole game,” Ingold says.
every single time.” After struggling with that but in a later draft, Verity only starts using the “Another obvious one is that the nice teacher

79
THE MAKING OF…

Q&A
is called Miss Lemon, as opposed to Miss built into the Ink script, because I didn’t think it
Honey.” Expelled is also the product of Ingold’s through properly. At that point, a good chunk of
own experience. He didn’t attend public school as the development time was tearing down the
a student, but after leaving university he worked Anastasia innards of the game, and then rebuilding them in
as a teacher at the prestigious Highgate School in Wyatt
a way that actually worked. I think I did that
2D artist
north London. “It was all boys when I joined, and maybe three times before hitting on something that
then it went co-ed for the last couple of years How did you settle actually does what it’s supposed to do.”
before I left, ran away and decided I didn’t want on the art style for The complexity of Expelled also meant there
Expelled? Was it
to be a teacher any more. So, I had a sense of important for the game to link in with other were numerous edge cases that might prompt
that in my head, and the workings of the school titles in Inkle’s catalogue? bugs, such as working out what happens when
environment, which must have fed into the writing. We wanted some visual link with Overboard, multiple characters enter a scene simultaneously.
so I drew out a few different styles that had a
“The other thing I was thinking about, my wife “I’m going to make an engine-level rule that two
similar look, but which also suggested it was
went to an all-girls public school. I’ve heard a lot set in an earlier time period. We went with less people are not allowed to walk into the room at
about that experience from her, and that definitely saturated colours. I don’t know if people will the same time as each other,” Ingold laments.
fed into the characters and their relationships and pick up on that, but the reasoning was that it’s But the prospect of another game was, at one
set further in the past. There’s less colour.
the sort of things they were worried about.” stage, under threat. Reviews were strong, but the
Ingold was never able to recall that story told What was the process for designing the launch sales of Expelled fell far short of Inkle’s
by his aunt, but a conversation with another aunt characters? Was there one specific point that expectations, and were a fraction of those for
helped greatly with fleshing out Expelled’s world. formed their beginnings? Overboard. Even today, nobody at Inkle is entirely
Jon would give me a one-sentence prompt for
“She discovered that I was writing a story about a character, and I liked that, because it was an
sure what happened. Ingold suggests the “death
public school, and then wrote me an essay about idea, but one I could interpret in different ways. of Twitter” may have been a factor, because it
her experiences, which was full of vitriol about For Natalya it was ‘Russian tragic ballerina’, so made promoting Inkle’s games a lot more difficult.
how religious the environment was, and full of I thought maybe I’ll make her look a bit sad, However, he also points out a bug in Steam that
and when I think ‘Russian’, I think ‘long blonde
other details as well. That was very useful.” hair’. A lot of time with the characters, I’ll just meant the boost in visibility that is supposed to be
Ingold was keen to avoid labels, or bracketing need to keep drawing them until, to me, it triggered when a game hits its launch date didn’t
students as ‘bullies’, ‘nerds’, or any other looks like it’s a real person. happen. Expelled arrived on Valve’s store in
stereotype. “When you meet real teenagers, March. It wasn’t until two months later that Inkle
Where did you find the outfits? Was it a
they’re not like that at all,” he says, “because challenge to make them look genuine? suspected something had gone wrong.
none of them know who they are yet. They’re very It’s not as simple as Googling ‘What did “We launched strongly, into the top of the
awkward, and clumsy, and confused, and often people wear at school in the 1920s?’, ‘new and trending’ chart,” Ingold says, “but then
because it will just come up with a Pinterest
quite weird because they’re figuring everything we vanished a few moments later, appearing only
picture, and you’re like, ‘OK, what country
out, and I really wanted to try and capture that is this? And is it actually the 1920s, or are sporadically afterwards, instead of cruising
sense of how gloriously odd real teenagers are you just lying?’ downwards for a few days.”
in quite a compassionate and human way.” The dress they’re wearing in the game is Steam wishlist numbers for Expelled were also
called a gym slip, and it’s a wool dress that
Natalya is the best example. “She’s ridiculous originally was for wearing in the gym, but
low, Ingold says. “It’s the same group of people, I
and she’s over the top,” Ingold explains, “but I then became just what they would wear in think, who just go, ‘Oh, it’s an Inkle game, I’ll buy
remember a friend who was a bit like that as a schools all the time. that at some point’. And those people, I think, do
teenager: just somewhat too melodramatic. Young not know that Expelled exists.”
people are actually incredible and brilliant and “and more full art pieces of, like, someone lying Valve belatedly activated release visibility for
wonderful, and I think fiction does a frequent on the floor after they’ve just been whacked.” Expelled in May, but the game’s launch phase
disservice to its depiction of teenagers.” However, the technology buckled under the had passed, and it had only a small effect on
strain – where Inkle was originally just tightening sales. Fortunately, despite Expelled’s struggles,
Whereas Overboard was whipped out at bolts on the engine, when it started making more Inkle isn’t going anywhere. On the contrary, the
breakneck speed, Expelled took considerably additions to Expelled, it was too much for the studio has developed a new model that allows it
longer. Essentially, Inkle wanted it to look better, custom-built Ink scripting language to handle. to survive on backlog sales. “We have the
and to express the characters’ nuances through “As we pushed it a little bit harder, with larger opportunity to make small failures,” Humfrey says.
animation as well as dialogue. “One of our numbers of characters and more demands on their Sustainability is now the company’s goal,
design goals was: ‘Let’s just have a fuck of a lot scheduling, it turned out the code from Overboard Ingold says, but not at the expense of creative
more art’,” Ingold says. “I think that was literally didn’t work for that at all,” Ingold remembers. freedom. “The most important thing for us is not to
what I said.” While Overboard had 70 character “The fact that Overboard works is mostly fluke, be huge or to sign multimillion-dollar deals with
frames, Expelled featured 210. because the various conditions that the characters any publishers,” he says. “We don’t even bother
“There are a lot more emotions for each operate in just so happen not to trigger any of the pursuing those things. We want to be free to
character,” 2D artist Anastasia Wyatt continues, massive engineering problems that I personally make the games we are interested in making.”

80
 1

2 3

1 Provisional sketches of the

6 esteemed but demanding Miss

Mulligatawney’s School For
Promising Girls, the setting for the
crime you’re accused of committing.
2 Inkle wanted more nuanced and
detailed animation in Expelled to
help convey the inner complexities
of its adolescent characters.
3 Inklewriter, the studio’s first
engine, used for creating interactive
fiction, made the move to open
source in 2019. The latest engine,
Ink, was developed for making
Overboard and then Expelled.
4 Your goal in Expelled is to avoid

7 getting kicked out of school after

being framed for an attempted
murder – versus committing an
actual murder without being
detected in 2021’s Overboard.
5 Jon Ingold loved writing for the
adult Veronica – now an actress –
in Overboard, and worked out a
way of bringing her back as the
lead character for the prequel.
6 Narrative director Jon Ingold.
7 Joseph Humfrey, art and
code director at Inkle Studios

81
 STUDIO PROFILE

STR ANGE
SCAFFOLD
How to embrace the weird
while keeping the culture and
games focused on people
BY RUTH CASSIDY
B
etween supernatural neo-noir shooter Founded 2019
Employees One plus 80+ rotating contractors
El Paso, Elsewhere, satirically self- Key staff Xalavier Nelson Jr
explanatory point-and-click An Airport For URL www.strangescaffold.com
Aliens Currently Run By Dogs, and sinister Selected softography I Am Your Beast, El Paso,
Elsewhere, Space Warlord Organ Trading
motel-set adventure game CLICKOLDING, the Simulator, TMNT: Tactical Takedown
Strange Scaffold back catalogue is remarkably Current project Truck-Kun Is Supporting Me
diverse. And yet the studio remains prolific: From Another World?!
despite many of its games being weird,
idiosyncratic and potentially tough to market, Departing from tradition, however,
Strange Scaffold nevertheless develops and Xalavier Nelson Jr, who before founding Strange Scaffold was necessitates a lot of invention, finessing and
releases multiple titles each year. known for his narrative design work on Hypnospace Outlaw gradual course correction. In Nelson Jr’s words,
“It didn’t start with anything so grand as the the Strange Scaffold production process began
idea of starting a studio or a label,” creative neither I nor my collaborators would necessarily “with me, in separate chats on Discord”. Over
director Xalavier Nelson Jr recalls. “The be better off than before. I didn’t want anyone to time, the studio founder started to recruit external
traditional structure and narrative of what a stake the ability to feed their kids on whether or producers – but that meant learning to trust, and
studio can be, and who gets to build a studio, not a game called Space Warlord Organ to delegate to other people.
were still something that I fully believed were Trading Simulator did well.” Candace Hudert joined Strange Scaffold in
entirely out of my reach.” 2023 as the lead producer on El Paso,
The conventional studio system was “valid”, Today, Strange Scaffold operates on Elsewhere. In hindsight, Hudert sees that year as
Nelson Jr says, in the sense that it could produce what Nelson Jr calls a constellation model, a wake-up call, when the major changes needed
compelling, high-quality games, but it wasn’t where a rotating cast of part-time contractors within the studio came suddenly to light. Even
something he felt able to replicate. The moves between overlapping projects. Built when individual projects were well-planned,
inspiration for an alternative mode of videogame around a tightly scoped production timeline, developing multiple games side by side was
production only came to him in 2019, when he it’s designed to accommodate developers’ creating conflicts in the schedule that somebody
was approached by the New York University
Game Center.
“They have an event that they do every year IT ENABLES NELSON JR TO HIRE PEOPLE
called No Quarter,” Nelson Jr explains, “which
is where they talk to some of the most interesting WHO WA N T AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE
developers in the space and say, ‘We’re going
to give you $5,000. Make whatever you want – REGIMENTED CULTURE OF OTHER STUDIOS
it just has to be ready to present to the public by
October’. That resulted in the very first version of personal circumstances. This means Strange urgently needed to manage. That somebody was
An Airport For Aliens Currently Run By Dogs.” Scaffold can release games that have shorter ultimately Hudert, who was promoted to studio
Through No Quarter, Nelson Jr met designer development times, and is able to do so more producer. “I was watching a lot of slow-motion
Tom Vinita. “We went from him teaching me frequently. It also enables Nelson Jr to hire train crashes,” he says. “But I give much credit to
Unity, where we would exchange code for the people who want or need an alternative to the Xalavier. This is one of the few jobs where I can
game via Twitter DMs to, ‘You know what? We more conventional regimented, sometimes crunch- go to my boss and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t working,
should probably just be working on the same driven, culture of other studios. OK?’ and the behaviour changes.”
project’,” Nelson Jr says. Over time, the pair “We’ve changed the entire pipeline because Still, by 2023, Strange Scaffold’s finances
pulled together more and more people, not only of a bereavement, or somebody going to grad were threateningly tight. No additional funding
to build An Airport For Aliens, but also to make school – things that just happen in people’s had been secured for El Paso, Elsewhere. To
footholds for future projects. lives,” Nelson Jr explains. “And that’s very ensure he could pay for the project all the way
“It wasn’t just to ship that game,” Nelson Jr atypical to see, especially at a studio of our to completion, Nelson Jr was taking on external
says, “but to really open the door to someone at scale, because indie games are nothing if not the contracts, in addition to his work as creative
my scale – someone who didn’t grow up with home of ‘three best friends have to make this director. El Paso, Elsewhere was going to be
money or connections – to try to find a way to game in three years or we all die’. OK, but unless something changed long-term,
ethically and consistently make great games.” “Creating a studio that specifically says, it would be the studio’s final game.
As Nelson Jr looked towards the studio’s next ‘You deserve to still be able to make games and “I feel like God closed every door except
project, however, the question of how to sustain make an impact and get paid fairly for your the one that would ultimately mean we could
Strange Scaffold as a business loomed large. efforts, so we’re going to scope our projects survive and be happy,” Nelson Jr says, recalling
“I realised that, structurally, if I tried to pull in around what you can actually, hopefully, that period. Through his contract work, he met
the resources to build a studio that gave people reasonably accomplish in a given time and Faisal Sethi, the founder of Netflix Games
a job for one year and then left us all scrambling in a given budget’, it all ends up defining developer Frosty Pop. Here was a business
to pull ourselves together in the aftermath, then those approaches.” partner who would let Strange Scaffold

83
STUDIO PROFILE

Strange Scaffold operates as a fully remote studio. Colin McInerney (left) was the co-lead
on Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3, and is going on to launch his own studio. Brianne
Neumann (above) was a 2D artist for the recently released TMNT: Tactical Takedown

continue to work, and to keep its focus on “I think that oftentimes the game industry also represents a new style of legal arrangement
ethical, sustainable production. gets very navel gazey, and starts losing that known as ‘project share’. Strange Scaffold has
perspective that it is an exceptionally young given McInerney access to CRDM3’s
But financial backing means nothing art form and industry,” Hudert says. “And you development repository, which he can use to
without a committed playerbase. “Over and don’t have to invent the wheel. People have build his game on top of, in exchange for a
over again, the story we see when someone made wheels.” portion of the eventual revenue.
really connects with one of our games is they “Thank God I’m now at a position where I
find one of our other ones and they go, ‘Oh, my Nelson Jr also advocates for an alternate get to do the thing I couldn’t do [when I started],”
God, I totally understand, I see you in both of game industry. When he first wanted to start a Nelson Jr says. “I get to establish a precedent
these’,” Hudert says. studio, his vision was to create games and then and say, ‘Here, you get to start a studio now for
Hudert also works in theatre, and says that successively build on top of them – he laments exponentially less than you would otherwise’.”
the precarious nature of that creative field informs that so much time and money is spent on The way Strange Scaffold works may not be
his view of game production. “I’m coming from rebuilding the basic functions of genres such as creatively or financially practical for other game-
an industry that’s been dying for several thousand deckbuilders and boomer shooters. “Gaming is makers, and Nelson Jr is the first to point that out.
years. Sometimes you’ve just got to talk very one of the few mediums outside of music that can But it proves that alternative ways are possible. It
barefacedly to your audience, because
otherwise they’re not going to know, and you’re
not going to get what you need.” IT M AY NOT BE PRACTICAL FOR OTHER
It’s the connective, creative tissue in Strange
Scaffold’s now-extensive back catalogue – and GAME-MAKERS, BUT IT PROVES THAT
players’ willingness to explore it – that helps to
keep the studio afloat. During its recent Summer
ALTERNATIVE WAY S ARE POSSIBLE
Of Strange Scaffold event, along with several
game announcements, all of its previous use an existing foundation and deliver something is a home for small, strange, slow successes and
productions were bundled together at significant new with it, something meaningful,” he says. also bombastic hits that lend themselves to movie
discount. As a whole, they serve as context for In Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3, you adaptations, such as El Paso, Elsewhere, which
the studio’s journey and ethos. “You don’t make are presented with a metanarrative of the game’s was optioned in 2024 by Academy Award
seven games in a year without making 11 other own troubled development – what starts as a nominee LaKeith Stanfield. As the world changes,
games first,” Nelson Jr says. fusion of Puzzle Quest and Resident Evil becomes Nelson Jr says it presents new ethical questions.
Its alternative approach to making the tale of how dozens of videogames simply But, as he looks to the future, he sees that
videogames also makes Strange Scaffold less don’t get made, and how Strange Scaffold itself scaffolds are already there.
susceptible to typical industry pitfalls. For was nearly closed down. It’s a eulogy for all the “I’ve got some major life changes occurring in
example, kidnapping simulator Life Eater, games that have been squashed, and also a the near future, and the idea of having a structure
released in April 2024, “bombed” at launch, metaphorical – and, in fact, literal – springboard that, as much as it accommodates others, can
Nelson Jr says, but now it’s starting to break for the studio’s future. also accommodate me is very humbling and
even. For some studios, a single sluggish release Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 co-lead something that I now want to preserve with
– not even a flop – can mark the difference Colin McInerney is now launching his own everything in me,” Nelson Jr concludes. “Is
between professional life and death. But Strange studio, Pedalboard Games – fitting Nelson Jr’s Strange Scaffold finished growing and improving
Scaffold’s method of working makes it adaptable iterative vision, its debut project is a ‘remaster’ of and changing and sometimes becoming smaller?
and nimble. Hudert believes that game the fictional game-within-a-game Creepy Redneck No. But it very much no longer accepts as a
development, as a concept, is far from fixed. Dinosaur Mansion 1. The creation of Pedalboard valid answer that we might be wrong.”

84
 2

4
5

1 Strange Scaffold’s sillier games

6
are often exactly what they say on
the tin. This is a redneck dinosaur.
2 Co-op Kaiju Horror Cooking
originally had a different working
title, but its four-word elevator
pitch excited more people.
3 I Am Your Beast uses kinetic
typography in lieu of cutscenes.
It’s a good example of how to
creatively scope downwards.
4 Developing TMNT: Tactical
Takedown was one of the unique
opportunities opened up by
the Frosty Pop partnership.
5 Truck-kun Is Supporting Me
From Another World?! was
inspired by the isekai genre’s
favourite way of transporting
characters between realities.
6 Next year will see the sequel
to Space Warlord Organ Trading
Simulator, moving from organ
trading to speculating on babies

85
 REVIEWS. PERSPECTIVES. INTERVIEWS. AND SOME NUMBERS

NEAR MISSES REVIEWED THIS ISSUE

Chip ’N Clawz Vs The Brainioids PC, PS5, Xbox Series
Arriving a little late to secure a full review slot, we’ve
88 Mafia: The Old Country
passed a pleasing couple of hours with this cheery PC, PS5, Xbox Series
RTS so far. This is a child-friendly twist on the tactical
play Julian Gollop and Snapshot are known for, 92 Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
channelling Ratchet & Clank in its script, aesthetic PC, PS5, Xbox Series
and central character pairing. There’s even a touch of
platforming as you guide Chip around levels building 94 Shinobi: Art Of Vengeance
robot factories to mine ‘brainium’, then take down PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series
the aliens and their own machines. A sort of Pikmin
meets Command & Conquer, then, and perhaps 96 Sword Of The Sea
a gateway drug for Gollop’s back catalogue.
PC, PS5
98 Shuten Order
PC, PS5, Xbox Series
100 Herdling
PC, PS5, Xbox Series
102 Echoes Of The End
PC, PS5, Xbox Series
104 Abyssus
PC
Gradius Origins PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series
Another month, another retro collection, although 106 Drag X Drive
this one does contain a new addition. Salamander III Switch 2
has been made to look like it belongs with its older
cousins here, with slightly rough-hewn sprites that 108 Is This Seat Taken?
could have come from the ’90s. Yet a pleasing series PC, Switch
of greatest hits – expect moai and volcanoes – clearly
implies more retrospective distance. Origins is also
notable as the work of M2, whose high standards
mean quality emulation and a range of regional
ROMs for the six older games featured, plus a suite
of galleries into the bargain. The only lamentable
absence? Any sign of Treasure’s Gradius V.

Explore the iPad

edition of Edge for
extra Play content

86
Know more heroes
The headline acts of this month’s reviews cast us in the familiar guise of the daring
hero (or antihero). We’re fresh from roleplaying a rampaging ninja, a rising
mafioso prodigy and a certain tactical espionage master (with a strong stomach).
That the games they feature in are a remake, a revival and a prequel to a
longstanding series is testament to the ageless appeal and stability of such
protagonists. With the types of games they guarantee – very much action and
adventure – they won’t disappear or fall out of favour any time soon.
Scan down this section’s contents list, though, and you’ll find some very different
characters. Here is a resurrected cult leader who must solve their own murder;
here a traveller who uses a sword not as a weapon but as a surfboard. One
adventure sees us herding magical bison towards their mountain home. Elsewhere
we’re trying to create the perfect seating plan for fussy city dwellers. And then
there’s a sports game based solely on the wheelchair version of basketball – an
otherwise-ignored category of competitive play.
The notion that indies and lower-budget productions
represent a hotbed of creativity in games is a cliché that isn’t
entirely accurate. We encounter countless me-too efforts
from smaller developers, and this month’s Echoes Of The
End falters precisely because it’s forged in the image of
higher-profile peers whose quality it can’t match. Yet clichés
become clichés due to a grain of truth, and it’s hard to argue
that the concept behind Herdling could ever have received
triple-A backing, or that Drag X Drive could have been more
than a side project for Nintendo, or any other large publisher.
That’s not to say that all these games are unqualified
successes, but regardless, the existence of this diversity of
roles feels like a good thing in itself. Maybe it’s another
cliché, but anyone can be a hero in the right situation.

87
 PLAY

Mafia: The Old Country

T
ry to change Enzo’s outfit at the start of a mission Developer Hangar 13 Country suffers from the same success as Red Dead
Publisher 2K Games
in Mafia: The Old Country, and you’re given the Redemption 2, where the characters are just grounded,
Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series
option to “disable story outfits” – to use costumes Release Out now real and human enough to ensure that their ability and
that you might have obtained by purchasing the Deluxe will to murder ten, 20, 30 people in a single sitting
Edition of the game or that are specific to other set-piece creates an irredeemable hypocrisy between the game
levels, such as the helmet and jodhpurs Enzo wears in a as written and the game as played.
motor race. As in Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption It’s as if Hangar 13 feels bound – by expectations,
and the other open-world (or quasi open-world) games selfconsciousness or external pressures, or a combination
that partially inspire the new Mafia, you can dress your of all of these – to unhelpful videogame conventions.
character how you like. But here, it comes with a More than dramatic momentum or even consistency of
warning. Disable story outfits and you are told “your plot and character, some of the missions, particularly in
appearance may not match the tone of the story”. It’s an the middle third, feel like they exist to serve game
example of how Hangar 13 sometimes places aesthetics, length and scale. This is especially noticeable when you
character and dramatic consistency above mechanics. are driving to a mission objective, when it’s too soon for
And herein lies our central conflict. To actually play When was Hangar 13 to start moving the chapter’s plot along but
The Old Country, it feels unoriginal, the gunfights, car there are still five minutes of game time that need to be
chases and sneaking sections certainly no different to the last time filled. In these sections, your companions will repeatedly
those of Hangar 13’s most recent series entry, Mafia: you played and extraneously outline the premise of the assignment;
Definitive Edition, and not that dissimilar to the action they’ll explain that you need to sneak into the building
in the very first, Illusion Softworks-built game from a shooting and steal something from the safe, in five different ways.
2002. Beyond that, barring a few showpiece levels that
are helped along by their settings (a shootout during a
game in That you have the option to skip the travel scenes
suggests Hangar 13 is aware they’re dramatically inert;
street party, an assassination at the opera), the car- and which pointing the fact these sequences are in the game by default
gunplay feel stuck-on and tertiary, a concession to the illustrates how, for all its more visionary qualities, The
crime and thirdperson shooter genres Hangar 13 appears a gun felt Old Country is still tied to videogame formalisms.
to regard as mere connective tissue between its prized transgressive? You might find yourself wishing the development
story beats – something for you to do, and something team had been more assertive. If the tone is supposed to
to occupy time, but not something that will come to be tightly maintained, why give you the opportunity to
bear on the plot very much. There are times when The change Enzo’s outfit at all? If Hangar 13 wants a driven,
Old Country feels like it’s a videogame begrudgingly. constructed story, why not cut the pseudo open-world
But there are also occasions where the narrative will map entirely? Unfortunately, the most cynical answer to
surprise you, when the game is confidently romantic, these questions is also the most likely: the various
tragic and mindful of consistent characterisation to a interests that dictate a game’s marketability and potential
degree that is still uncommon in mainstream games, financial success believe that a game with a long
especially shooters. For example, you don’t get a gun runtime, a larger amount of player choice and a greater
until mission four (of 15), when you use an empty number of in-game mechanics and interactables is more
revolver as a prop to intimidate an aged farmer into commercially auspicious, and no doubt have an archive
handing over protection money. Here, the game of customer metrics to back up that belief. The more
contextualises a familiar videogame action (aiming a optimistic but also more abstract answer is that the
gun) with richer meaning. The violence has been language of videogames – or, at least, the language of
withheld for so long and you’ve grown fond enough of videogames that combine high production values with
Enzo and his companions, Luca and Cesare, that when artistic substance – has not yet developed sufficiently
their veneer of charm finally slips and you’re reminded that the two might seamlessly coincide. But perhaps that
of what they’re truly about, it’s suitably impactful. coincidence is getting more likely, and The Old Country
When was the last time you played a shooting game in represents another step towards making it happen.
which holding down the left trigger to point a gun felt There is nothing novel in the mechanics here, but
transgressive, or even eventful in the mildest sense? thanks to Hangar 13’s script, the gun battles, car chases
and stealth sections feel more dramatic and exciting than
However, once you have the guns – and in fact, by they might in another, mechanically identical game. At
the end of that fourth mission – the playable violence the centre of The Old Country is a story of adolescent
loses depth. Your enemies are nameless, death-wish mobster Enzo’s love for Isabella, the daughter of his
fodder and you pile their bodies high. In Mafia 3, each Don. In Mafia 3, the members of the eponymous crime
of Lincoln Clay’s many kills feels part of something organisation were recast as the villains – since you were
bigger, as though every dead mobster marks another killing them, rather than one of them, the game’s title
blow in a righteous battle against The Man. The Old and the fact it was a sequel felt almost ironic. Here,

88
 ABOVE While the scenery is undeniably beautiful, driving sequences are
unfortunately punctuated by needless, expository dialogue. You do at
least have the option to skip travel scenes if it all gets a bit too much

TOP Even the most populous

areas of this virtual Sicily feel
wonderfully serene and peaceful.
MAIN While it’s mechanically
familiar, Mafia: The Old Country’s
shooting and exploration is
wrapped up in some terrific writing.
RIGHT The body count definitely
creeps up in the latter stages of
the game, but there is a limit to
violence during early levels

89
 Firearms aren’t the only weapons Enzo will have to prove his proficiency
there is a subtler subversion of expectations. While the with. The mechanics of the knife-fighting system feel as though they
majority of the playable action is consistent with the were inspired by the sword battles of Ninja Theory’s Hellblade games
Mafia name and the series’ traditions, the cosa nostra
itself is only a secondary character, Enzo’s work family Hangar 13 delivers a masterclass. Again, this is most
the context and backdrop for the real story of his actual keenly felt during the sequences with Enzo and Isabella,
family – or, at least, the family that he wants to build. PATHETIC FALLACY in the horse rides, walks and country drives that they
Peaceful and hot, the rural take together, where The Old Country’s painstakingly
While it’s not uncommon for games to have Sicily of Mafia: The Old Country detailed rural Sicily, characterised by sleepy coastal
changes over the course of the
convincing and developed romantic subplots, this game game, the clear blue skies of the
towns, low sunsets and constantly chirping crickets,
feels exceptional in that the entirety of its story is early levels gradually darkened serves as the ideal stage for a tale of reckless young
written around Enzo, Isabella and their forbidden love. by smoke from Mount Etna. By love. The effect is twofold, and illustrates neatly Hangar
If the shooting and driving scenes are the weakest or the later stages, it looks like a 13’s ability to inject greater drama into even the most
different world, one that is
least imaginative parts of the game, the playable considerably gloomier, both
innocuous little moments. Enzo and Isabella’s stolen
sequences and interactions between its two leads are literally and metaphorically. But afternoons together look like heaven – but also give you
easily the most distinctive. In one level, Enzo is walking there are also some powerful the sense that, especially with all the terrible things
through town, delivering bottles of wine, when Isabella contrasts, scenes of extreme that you (or rather, you as Enzo) do in your other life,
violence set against the
surprises him and offers to help. Knowing that the Don tranquility of a coastal town,
this happiness cannot last.
plans to marry Isabella to the son of a wealthy a church on a hill, a little And so, while there are plenty of times when The
landowner and will probably kill both her and Enzo if he terracotta villa with a well. Old Country’s standard-issue mechanics get in the way
suspects they’re lovers, there is more tension in this Although this one is smaller of its dramatic ambitions, there are also plenty of times
and more contained, it certainly
sequence than any of the shootouts – what if people feels like Red Dead Redemption
when they don’t, when the shooting, killing and stealing
see the two of them alone and start to gossip? 2 was an influence on the serve as the context for the romantic tragedy that is
Hangar 13 also demonstrates an energetic command beautiful but brutal game really the game’s core. Hangar 13’s apparent respect for
of metaphor. We’re keen to avoid spoilers, but the world Hangar 13 has created. its players is often undermined by a similarly apparent
prologue section in the sulphur mine serves as the patronage – as much as the studio trusts you to find
perfect setup for the game’s finale, and there’s a reason gratification in its game’s subtle qualities, it also
that the fictional town of San Celeste lies in the shadow expects that you’ll need everything to be spelled out
of Mount Etna. Again, it’s difficult to explain without, for you and you won’t feel as if your money has been
literally, giving the game away, but the climactic two well spent unless you’re provided with various open-
missions – and especially the ending – demonstrate world superficialities. But if you can forgive those
how, thanks to Hangar 13’s writing and tension building, insecurities, perhaps the result of trying to balance a
even the most rote mechanics may leave you thrilled. mainstream genre game with more experimental
And while the core action might seem thoughtless narrative ambitions, The Old Country has an
or humdrum, when it comes to visual and audio work, enormous amount of heart. 7

90
 PLAY

Post Script
A clockwork heart can’t beat faster

R
omance is a strange thing in games. In Cyberpunk explosive and unwieldy, and there’s nothing we can do
2077, if you want to begin a romantic relationship to change that. When these experiences are represented
with Pan Am, you need to choose the right lines via gameplay systems, which by virtue of being gameplay
of dialogue at key points during her respective side systems we’re able to predict, direct and correct, then
missions. Astarion, in Baldur’s Gate 3, can only be naturally a large amount of the truth of those
successfully seduced if you finish his companion experiences is lost in the translation.
quest and – again – make certain decisions at certain Videogame mechanics – or videogames, thanks to
moments. Even the most standoffish of Stardew Valley’s their mechanical nature – aren’t doomed to be forever
singletons is yours once you’ve worked out what gift incapable of giving appreciation to the depths of
they might appreciate. Go back further. You can only romance. But the romance ‘systems’ that exist and have
pair up with Fallout 4’s Piper if you consistently become standardised within videogames right now
perform particular in-game behaviours in front of her. certainly feel incomplete, or maybe unsuitable for
To win the hearts of the various girlfriend characters capturing the core of the experience of being in love.
in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, you have to make While Mafia: By contrast, while Mafia: The Old Country is an
sure that your CJ has the right haircut, right car and
right body type, and then choose the correct location
The Old Country intensely romantic game (it’s a melodrama in the
classical sense, about honour, death, family and
for a date. The best way to get married in The Sims is is an intensely forsaken but irrepressible love, set against the backdrop
to invite your prospective spouse to your home and of 1900s Sicily), its romance isn’t extrapolated via any
spam ‘compliment’ and ‘gift’ until their fondness romantic game, systems. There are no mechanics to woo Isabella. There
meter reaches the 100 mark. its romance isn’t are no scenes in which you can choose what Enzo
Videogames often turn romance into something should say, and no optional objectives to increase
that is mechanical and computational, the ineffable, extrapolated via Isabella’s attraction gauge.
abstract and emotional experience of falling in love
bastardised into Boolean logic, as if by submitting
any systems Interpreted one way, the romance in Mafia: The
the correct string of inputs, people’s hearts can be Old Country might start to sound superficial: if you
‘unlocked’. Complete a sidequest. Choose X line of can’t significantly interact with or influence Enzo and
speech. Make sure that your morality gauge is full Isabella’s relationship, make their bond stronger or
beyond a certain threshold. These are the same weaker, some people may argue that it’s not a fully
mechanics and parameters that have to be fulfilled if integrated part of the game, because it’s not ‘playable’.
we want to get a hidden weapon, a new character perk, But if The Old Country’s central love story were explored
a trophy or achievement. By contextualising and via mechanics, it could run afoul of the issues that
wrapping it in this type of activity, videogames make affect the love stories in games such as Cyberpunk and
love – and the people who fall in love – into objects, Baldur’s Gate, where the consummation of a relationship
lacking discernment or any sort of choice. Rather with another person can sometimes feel like an
than being expressive and deeply personal, then, objective in the most banal sense. Also, by taking you
romance becomes a reliable, repetitive process, an and your inputs out of the equation, The Old Country
exercise in cynicism that suggests the best way to gives the romance between Enzo and Isabella greater
ingratiate yourself with someone you’re interested in prominence and respect. The game insists not only that
is to assume they think and act like a machine, and their tale be told but told in a specific way. Because it
then reverse-engineer their personalities. develops outside of any mechanics, the story of Enzo
It calls to mind Neil Strauss, ‘Magic’ and the and Isabella falling in love is not subjective from player
sociopathy of seduction schools, where men are taught to player. It’s not optional, malleable or variable – it’s
that all women are essentially the same puzzle box, the immovable centrepiece of the whole game.
perfectly susceptible and conquerable – just like the Which isn’t to say that there are right and wrong,
stock exchange and property market – as long as you better and worse ways for videogames to ‘do’ romance,
know the universal codes. If Call Of Duty: Advanced and players will, of course, carry on enjoying finding
Warfare’s ‘press F to pay respects’ seems so stupid and ways to curry mechanical favour with their favourite
so funny, it’s because our life experiences (love, grief) NPCs. But it’s another example – and there are several
are complex and multifaceted, whereas videogame across Mafia: The Old Country – of how ‘more
mechanics, by their nature, are consistent and tangible. mechanics’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘better’; of how a
Our feelings are also often outside of our control. The videogame can still be thematically and dramatically
beauty of love (and, if we’re looking for its direct impactful even if those themes and that drama aren’t
contrast, the agony of grief) is that it’s spontaneous, directly shaped by the players.

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Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

E
very tiny detail of protagonist Snake is modelled. Developer/publisher Konami closer camera perspective and the increased fidelity of
Format PC (tested), PS5, Xbox Series
The fabric of his fatigues darkens and grows heavy the plant and animal life further ground the action. And
Release Out now
with water when he splashes through a stream or it’s evident that careful consideration has gone into the
pond. The loose ends of his bandana whip in the wind. character models, in the way their appearance splits the
Up close, it’s possible to make out the pores in his skin, difference between realism and stylisation.
the strands of hair in his beard and the cracked texture Still, the cartoony abstractions of the original’s
of dried camouflage paint wiped in streaks across his faces seem more appropriate for a game that mixes the
face. Seeing – and controlling – such a lavishly detailed historical specificity of mid-’60s geopolitics with
version of Snake is Delta’s main purpose. The existence characters such as a bee-controlling spec-ops soldier or
of the game, which serves as a remake of 2004’s Metal a towering Soviet colonel who summons lightning. In a
Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, is premised on the desire to game where a digital LBJ awards a distinguished soldier
witness a classic cast of characters, and the setting of the title of ‘Big Boss’ in a particularly emotional story
the story they star in, rendered in the highest fidelity Seeing – and beat, intense realism doesn’t seem necessary.
modern technology allows. Everything else about Delta,
from its reuse of its source material’s script and voice controlling – More successful is Delta’s tweaked control scheme.
acting through to its recreation of the level design and such a lavishly The original button layout is accessible when starting a
boss fights, seems almost besides the point. new game, but Delta also offers a new version that
Exactly like the original game, Delta opens in detailed version simplifies inputs. Rather than pull up a menu to change
1964, with a CIA special forces operative called John,
codenamed ‘Naked Snake’, on a mission to help a
of Snake is Snake’s clothes and face paint, a selection of paired
options is available at the press of a button, overlaid on
defector escape from a research facility hidden deep the game’s the screen just like the weapon and item bars. The
within a stretch of Soviet wilderness. This mission, of snappiness of modern technology also makes diving
course, goes off the rails almost immediately. The bulk main purpose into menus to treat Snake’s wounds or reference area
of the plot that follows sees Snake working to mitigate maps quicker. There’s a welcome friction to the original
increasing international tensions by sneaking around Snake Eater’s commands – to the finger contortions
behind enemy lines, destroying a superweapon, required to properly hold up an enemy with a gun or the
assassinating deadly targets, and meeting a cast of small frustrations of navigating a sluggish menu to
larger-than-life allies and enemies along the way. change camouflage – but the changed version is minor
The storytelling is Delta’s main draw, just as it was enough that it doesn’t represent a total departure.
the original Snake Eater’s most celebrated aspect. Otherwise, the original Snake Eater is almost entirely
Though not as thematically heady or as memorably replicated in Delta. The Soviet wilderness is still split
outré as its direct predecessor, the cast of colourful into separate regions, not replaced with a modern open-
characters and alt-history politicking of Snake Eater’s ended world design. The 2004 script and voice acting
Cold War setting always made it a favourite series entry, are reused. The plot plays out the same. Even the
and Delta reminds us why. Metal Gear’s convoluted A JUNGLE OUT THERE secrets hidden throughout the boss fights and levels are
central fiction is deemphasised, the plot concerned less Though its new character preserved, only lightly altered in some cases.
models immediately grab
with the history and politics of its universe than with Since it’s such a faithful remake, however, certain
attention, Metal Gear Solid
Snake’s personal relationship with figures such as The Delta’s vibrant, reimagined lines of dialogue land differently now. In one scene, for
Boss, his former-mentor-turned-traitor, and Eva, a setting is just as striking. The example, Snake meets with The Boss, and she, explaining
Bond-style femme-fatale spy. individual regions of its Soviet that he’s unsuited for the mission he’s undertaken,
wilderness are faithfully
Delta, like Snake Eater, has an appropriately organic points out that he’s taken to wearing her old bandana.
replicated in terms of layout,
setting, too, taking place mostly in humid swamps, but they’re more detailed “If you can’t put the past behind you,” she says, “you
dripping caves and densely treed forests. The stealth now, with modern lighting won’t survive long.” It’s hard not to hear irony in these
systems are built around a ‘camouflage index’ that sees technology and a closer camera words, read from a script more than two decades old
perspective used to enhance
you swapping fatigues and face paint to better blend and spoken now by a character whose face has been
Delta’s sense of place. As a
into the environment. Though there’s always the option result, dense sections of forest reworked in service of little more than seeing a
to shoot, punch out or distract enemies with a wide feel believably damp and lively reenactment of the past more clearly.
range of weapons and tools picked up in the as Snake crawls through Delta is compelling because of the quality of its
swaying plants, avoiding or
environment, you’re encouraged to forego open conflict source material, but it does feel disposable – a curio
catching reptiles and rats for
and silently slither through patches of tall grass or food. Approaching the weapons more in the vein of a talented fan bootleg modification
disappear against rocky terrain instead. facility of Groznjy Grad, with a than the kind of reenvisioning that would truly justify
The biggest difference between the original and the frosty wind pulling at Snake’s its existence. For those already drawn to the promise of
clothes and mountain peaks
remake is aesthetic; Delta portrays Snake Eater’s jungles seeing Snake appear more lifelike than ever before, Delta
visible on the horizon, is even
and canyons in fine detail. There’s a give and take to the more awe-inspiring and serves its purpose. Others may be better served
visuals that’s inherent to remakes in this vein. A new, foreboding than before. by playing the original, again or for the first time.
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 ABOVE Encounters with the sadistic, electricity-wielding Colonel Volgin,
arrogant Major Ocelot and the larger-than-life Cobra Unit account for
some of the most memorable boss fights in the entire Metal Gear series

MAIN Delta’s new control scheme

makes gunfights more intuitive,
but Snake Eater is designed as a
stealth game. There’s more
satisfaction to be found in quietly
slipping past enemy patrols.
ABOVE The many wounds Snake
receives throughout the game are
as high fidelity as the rest of the
remake. His burns, bruises and
broken bones are painfully vivid.
RIGHT Snake Vs Monkey returns
in Delta’s PC and PS5 versions
(with a Snake Vs Bomberman
mode in the Xbox game). Blending
the cartoon antics of Ape Escape
with Snake Eater’s shooting and
sneaking design works far
better than you might expect

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Shinobi: Art Of Vengeance

W
hen it comes to getting his own back, this Developer Lizardcube, Sega the coup de grâce from anywhere on the screen, and
Publisher Sega
isn’t Joe Musashi’s first rodeo. Back in 1989, if multiple enemies have the symbol simultaneously,
Format PC, PS4, PS5 (tested), Switch,
the slaying of his master and kidnapping Xbox One, Xbox Series you whip between them in a single swoop for a larger
of his partner sent him around the globe in a quest for Release Out now reward. At a basic level, this is a gratifying wire-act
revenge. This time it’s worse: his village has been razed, spectacle – try knocking an enemy off a platform, then
his clan slaughtered, and anyone who knows Joe can be diving after them to strike a fatal blow mid-fall. Yet
sure he won’t stand for that. Indeed, there’s a ferocity you can also use executions for positional advantage.
to him now. The arrogant, leisurely stride of his heyday Zip across the screen to finish one foe, for example, and
is replaced by an arrowed charge. As an assassin, he’s you might evade an incoming barrage, landing behind
less a doyen of scalpel sword strikes and bullseye kunai, your remaining assailants.
more a tornado of violence.
If Musashi is wilder now, though, that grants us a Of course, Musashi was never merely a fighter –
greater range of moves with which to express his As an assassin, he was a platforming specialist too, and Sega explores
displeasure. For starters, there are light and heavy that skillset to a similar extent. After an opening village
katana swings to link into combos, and kunai throws to he’s less a defence that ushers you from left to right, the level
interrupt foes. In addition to Joe’s signature tucked doyen of scalpel design breaks free. Built around the rhythm of a double
somersault double jump, there’s a dodge roll and an air jump and air dash, it’s often spacious, platforms spread
dash and a vertical wall run. His ninja flip sees him sword strikes wide and high, and only more so once you acquire tool-
dance behind an enemy after landing a blow, where he
might launch a mid-air spin attack, then restart a
and bullseye assisted abilities such as wall climbing and grapple
hooking. It’s intricate enough to justify the game’s map,
combo. Enemies have health bars, but also execution kunai, more and when we discover routes in the opening levels that
gauges, which you can max out for an instant kill, are locked until you possess certain powers, we wonder
earning a shower of kunai and health refills for your a tornado if this is Shinobi’s Symphony Of The Night moment. In
trouble. There are other gauges too. One charges as you of violence fact, it’s nothing so expansive. Rather, you can return to
attack, enabling ninpo techniques, of which you can each level should you wish to locate its secrets, and
equip four at a time. A fire-breath ninpo is good for extract them from optional challenge rooms. Some of
quick damage. The aquatic ninpo can deflect an attack. these, and some sections in later levels, are wonderfully
Another sees you lob a bomb that shatters enemy exacting, almost Celeste-like in their demands, albeit
armour. A final gauge measures ‘rage’, and revs up as largely put together from familiar platforming bric-a-
you take damage. Fill it and you can trigger Musashi’s brac: lasers, flame jets and buzzsaw blades.
ninjutsu magic – the classic example being a screen- As a whole, though, each area is phenomenal as a
clearing dragon-fire attack. bespoke challenge. Perhaps there’s one too many overall,
It’s a lot to juggle, and you’ll purchase or find or a few could do with a light edit, but each is memorable
additional tricks along the way. But unlike in the RIFT OF THE for its individual identity and as part of a carefully
recently released Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, the systems SHADOW DANCER paced sequence – slower, multi-limbed levels are often
here feel in lockstep from the off, each one feeding the The plot takes a turn for the punctuated by quick, direct interludes. Some take cues
strange when you make the
same momentum. It helps that this is a longer from earlier games – the city and the fish market are
acquaintance of Ankou, who is
adventure than The Game Kitchen’s more modest for all intents and purposes the seeded by Revenge’s Chinatown and dock levels, for
production – the array of skills has more time to bed in grim reaper. Since the game’s instance. But rather than being cheap callbacks, they
and you focus on a few at a time. We blend ninpo into archvillain, Ruse, has hold of flower into something new, in no small part owing to
Ankou’s legendary scythe, the
our repertoire gradually, for instance, which only makes Lizardcube’s sketch-and-ink art style, which has come
weapon’s rightful owner is keen
it all the more rewarding when we do start to squeeze to join your side. One upshot of on leaps and bounds since Streets Of Rage 4. Certainly,
parry counters between combos or finish a larger foe by this is that you can now locate a we can’t recall a 2D game whose backgrounds are so rich
turning them into a fireball. The way each move chains ‘rift’ tucked away in each level, in narrative detail, or full of extraordinary sights. It’s a
through which you can teleport
into the next with split-second timing is exquisite. A shame that the music doesn’t quite live up to the series’
to a sort of limbo dimension.
cheeky kunai as you approach an enemy breaks their These rifts are among the legacy, although it’s credible in its own right.
attack animation long enough to bring them into sword game’s harshest tests, many But perhaps the biggest compliment we can pay to
range. Land a couple of slashes on an armoured of them platforming gauntlets Sega is that even if you stripped away the IP and our
that fully stretch Musashi’s
opponent – who won’t flinch when struck – and you memories of Musashi’s prior missions, we would still
skillset. (They’re also very short
can nip behind them just as they respond. on checkpoints, so prepare to have an exquisite action-platform game on our hands.
The epitome of what feels good about Art Of put some graft in.) For each Even when it falters (the Saturday-morning-cartoon
Vengeance, however, is the execution attack. Execution one you complete, you’re script feels misjudged), something thrilling follows.
awarded a piece of a dark
damage is separate from direct damage, and once it’s But of course it is wonderful to see an iconic character
katana. As for what that does
built up on an enemy, a kanji symbol hovers above them when it’s fully assembled, well, given the modern treatment he deserves. Here’s
to show they’re ripe for the kill. You can then deliver we’re still working on it. proof: revenge really is a dish best served cold.
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 ABOVE The fish market is one of the more imaginatively decorated levels,
but there’s competition throughout. Even comparatively muted factories
and labs have grand structures to admire, plus their share of surprises

MAIN Octostar is a rare giant of

a boss. Many others are closer in
size to Musashi and more mobile.
ABOVE A combo meter builds as
long as you don’t take damage. You
can equip amulets whose effects
trigger at certain thresholds.
RIGHT Some skills and sequences
are inspired by Shinobi III, while
the arcade original gets a callback
in the return of an infamous boss

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Sword Of The Sea

S
ee that mountain? Looks familiar, doesn’t it? And Developer/publisher Giant Squid Attenborough getting a kick(flip) out of, and that in
Format PC (tested), PS5
that distant peak with the pillar of divine light itself is no small accomplishment.
Release Out now
shooting up from its summit isn’t the only thing
you’ll recognise. There are the shimmering, undulating For more than half its duration, this is as purely
sands. The fragmented ruins. The enigmatic figure pleasurable a game as you’ll play in 2025, sensational in
charged with navigating this arid environment, and the all but the lurid tabloid meaning of the word. We’re
graceful way they glide through it. The camera, shifting experiencing it on PC but with a DualSense controller,
from behind our protagonist to the side, reframing their and it’s hard to imagine it feeling quite the same
passage through interiors lined with tall arches to offer without those haptics and the sounds from its speaker.
dreamy glimpses at a sublime sunset. We’ll stop there, There is joy and satisfaction in its frictions, where you
since the callbacks could stretch beyond the end of the may be floating just above the surface but the gravelly
page. Suffice it to say that if Abzû and The Pathless top layer is felt in your palms, or when you’re sliding
hinted that former Thatgamecompany art director Matt It’s in the rush across rooftop slates accompanied by a rhythmic
Nava has been yearning to make a spiritual sequel to ceramic clatter. But it’s in the rush and the whoosh
Journey, Giant Squid’s latest makes that goal explicit. and the whoosh that becomes your soundtrack when you’re airborne or
If that prospect appeals, you probably needn’t read that becomes hurtling along a bridge or wall at breakneck pace that
further. Yet there’s more going on here. In some Sword Of The Sea is at its most thrilling. It’s SSX Tricky
respects, this feels more like a greatest hits package: the your soundtrack without the fear of bailing out, amid environments that
Endgame, perhaps, of the Nava Interactive Universe. As
you’d expect from the title, there’s more than a hint of
when you’re not only rival Journey’s for screenshot potential but on
occasion top them. If it’s sometimes a little too insistent
Abzû in its embrace of the blue planet and its flora and airborne that the on trying to evoke awe, you’re reminded, over and over,
fauna. There is, too, some of the giddying momentum of that Nava knows how to present an eye-saucering view.
The Pathless at its best, a game whose movement made game is at its Whenever it diverges from this mode, though, it falls
more sense when you interpreted its arrow-shooting most thrilling comparatively flat. An interlude aboard a dolphin serves
mechanic as a skateboarder steadily pushing off to its (cough) porpoise, albeit mostly to echo why Ecco
accelerate – and less when it brought you to a grinding never became a platforming hero. Ironically, your other
halt for rudimentary puzzles. Sword Of The Sea largely mount proves less of a shark jump, this Great White a
resolves that particular issue. Ancient, rumbling natural fit for wintry slopes that match both adjectives,
mechanisms that see structures rise and shipwrecks its powerful tail slap shattering chunks of ice for the
dredged up – and the fissures that, when widened via a golden tetra you spend to augment your move set.
downward thrust, cause torrents to flood the world – Sadly, those abilities factor into a postgame that score-
are not a challenge to be figured out. They are simply chasers and speedrunners will find flawed, since –
guides, landmarks to draw the eye or some other inexplicably – you still can’t skip cutscenes.
manner of artefact to activate and ease your passage. All Yet it’s at these points, when your exhilarating
you need concern yourself with is how to reach them. DROP IN THE OCEAN passage through the world says far more about your
Which, happily, is where this game is at its best. In the two and a half hours it relationship with it than its forgettable script ever
takes us to reach the finish, we
The eponymous blade is not a weapon but a mode of could, that the game’s message comes into focus. The
sense a tension within Sword Of
transport, a hoverboard of sorts that moves faster when The Sea: half the time it wants game’s mechanics rather than its narrative point to the
there’s salt water rather than sand beneath it. Granted, to be Journey, but within it importance of humanity’s symbiosis with nature. The
this captivating juxtaposition of ocean and desert isn’t beats the heart of an arcade- world can be more beautiful and more pleasurable to
style extreme sports game. The
a new idea: consider another sword, held skyward some move through, it says, if we work with it – as opposed
latter takes precedence after the
14 years ago by Nintendo EAD, and its Lanayru Sand credits – a newly unlocked Wisp to the more common, antihuman refrain that our planet
Sea. Nava and co’s latest proves this unlikely Cloak allows you to gain boosts might be better off without us.
combination was an idea worth revisiting, and yet in from landing trick combos, So what, then, if this is the rare Squid game where
while a speedometer and score
light of his catalogue it doesn’t feel so much like he’s genuine danger is missing? It says much that the perilous
display enable you to keep
riffing on someone else’s work as weaving an organic better track of how skilfully latter stages are the weakest – and, by contrast, how
tapestry from his own. And there are surprising you’re playing. In turn this much stronger they are when your abilities have grown
influences besides: we’re prodded, more often than we makes it easier to amass large and those hazards are less an obstruction and more an
amounts of the golden tetra,
expect, to recall Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and 1080° engaging challenge, not simply to surmount but to
unlocking a super jump that
Avalanche. There is something delightfully transgressive makes a third playthrough that conquer, as a skateboarder might own a spot. As a result,
about exploiting these antediluvian structures for their bit more appealing. You might this is Nava’s finest hour (or two) since the work for
sick trick potential, their sloping surfaces becoming find the pauses for story which he’s still best known – especially when it focuses
sequences make for welcome
ramps, their curves surrogate half-pipes from which to on the means rather than the end. And it’s only right we
downtime, but we’d be amazed
launch into gnarly stunts, grabs and spins. It’s the kind if Giant Squid doesn’t eventually follow suit for a game that establishes, from its
of game you can imagine both Bam Margera and David release a patch to skip them. very outset, that this isn’t about the destination.
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RIGHT Another familiar ingredient:
Austin Wintory’s soundtrack. It’s
pretty enough, but its blend of
twinkling piano, stentorian strings
and angelic choruses is evidence of
an award-winning composer resting
on his (considerable) laurels.
BELOW Nava cribs again from
Zelda for the game’s climactic
encounter, although in this case it’s
a rather less welcome borrowing.
BOTTOM Springy jellyfish and tall
fronds of kelp make it a little too
easy to stay off the ground and
thus sustain a high combo
multiplier in New Game Plus. Some
entertaining self-contained score-
chasing challenges are tucked
away off the critical path, though

ABOVE One mechanic that could perhaps have featured more in the game
challenges you to keep a delicate bubble of water intact as you ferry it
to an open-mouthed turtle statue in order to reveal the way forward

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Shuten Order

W
hatever the opposite of writer’s block is, Developer DMM of anyone whose heart is broken along the way. But the
Games, Too Kyo Games
Kazutaka Kodaka has it. The co-founder of story is so prescribed and generously timed that you
Publisher Spike Chunsoft
Too Kyo Games has only just emerged from Format PC, Switch (tested) never feel any peril or agency. Swapping a game’s usual
creating The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a Release September 5 text box for a slightly more colourful UI does not make
strategy-RPG/visual-novel hybrid with 100 alternate a dating sim; it’s a huge wobble that guarantees at least
endings and about 150 hours of storytelling to get us to four hours here are a drag. (Where they sit in the tale is
them. Across those arcs, the tale morphs to become a up to you; we recommend ripping the plaster off early.)
romance, a survival horror, a murder mystery and a This isn’t to say every other strand is stainless.
battle royale, all achieved with subtle shifts in narrative There’s a recurring problem with taking formats
framing. Now comes Shuten Order, another sprawling designed to sustain self-contained titles over tens of
story experiment – albeit at a more polite 30 hours – hours and crushing them into snackable versions. The
but one that takes genre shapeshifting to the next level. escape-room section, for example, has four hours to
As you venture through its world you’re served five self- It’s another establish 20 contestants, explore their fates and set up
contained games, all working towards a common goal. enough mystery for a grand reveal at the end. There’s
The narrative split follows a dissection of a more sprawling story barely any room left for the escape rooms; you only get
gruesome kind. The spiritual leader of the Shuten nation experiment, one proper point-and-click puzzle, with other door locks
is found chopped into parts and scattered across a park. given over to feeble tile-sliding and tetromino-fitting
Somehow this doesn’t prevent her from waking up in a but one that affairs. Professor Layton would pull his hat down over
nearby hotel room and being tasked with bringing her
killer to justice. The culprit is one of her inner circle of
takes genre his eyes in disapproval. Likewise the multi-protagonist
flowchart portion, which, while telling an interesting
five ministers, and each ministry has a different way of shapeshifting to story of revolution and (somehow) dinosaurs, doesn’t
doing business. In justice, expect Ace Attorney-style have the room to stretch out its branching consequences
detective work, sniffing out evidence and the the next level and capture the imagination. You’re on autopilot
contradictions it illustrates. But in security, the fight’s through A/B decisions, your mind wandering to all the
more urgent. Here you’re trapped in isometric mazes other times this has been handled better elsewhere.
trying to outrun and outwit an unstoppable pursuer. For At least these more writerly stretches lean into the
each strand, you pick a path and see it through to earn team’s strengths as storytellers. Sadly, the survival-
the facts that will put the whole sorry mess to bed. horror portion, in which you sneak round mazes to
These two examples are the most mechanically avoid the view cone of a masked killer, is truly hopeless.
diverse. Like the detective game, the remaining three are It’s welcome, perhaps, after 20 hours of hitting the text-
all variants on text-driven adventures – unsurprising advance button, but underwhelming as the monster fails
given the narrative pedigree at Too Kyo. Shuten Order to apply any pressure. You can run circles around the AI,
could, in fact, be seen as a gateway drug to past projects. and in the very rare moments it finally catches you and
Justice’s murder investigation – itself a fun riff on initiates a chase, the mazes are so generously laced with
Japanese literary classic The Inugami Curse – hews close SNAP HAPPY traps to stall it that you rarely need to run for more than
to Kodaka’s own Danganronpa series. There are startling Teaming up with the justice ten seconds. It’s perhaps understandable, not placing a
minister to play detective offers
death tricks, outlandish characters and a pulse- huge mechanical difficulty spike in the middle of an
a slight spin on the traditional
pounding accusation theme from Masafumi Takada; Ace Attorney or Danganronpa otherwise gentle story, but at what point does an idea
it’s a team within its comfort zone and you can feel it investigation phase. Given that become so neutered that it may as well not be included?
in the smoother ride. Elsewhere, the health ministry is you’re trapped on an island with Shuten Order has a natural countermeasure to
a family of potential killers,
hijacked and pulled into an escape-room gauntlet that individual criticisms: you are only ever a few hours away
temperatures are running high.
unfolds like a Zero Escape game on fast-forward, while Crime scenes are governed by a from playing something different. And if the pacing is
that series’ use of flowcharts to map branching paths is stress meter: study irrelevant uneven, the storytelling broadly works. Each segment of
also seen in Shuten’s tech department, explored by clues and it’ll push frayed nerves the game tells its own tale while seeding answers for the
one step closer to shutting down
jumping around the timelines of multiple protagonists. overarching mystery in a way that doesn’t feel overly
your case. In truth, it’s pretty
obvious to pick, say, a smoking engineered. And the order in which you tackle the five
Only Shuten Order’s education wing fails to draw gun over a neatly made bed, so does have a satisfying payoff, as core truths about the
on direct previous experience, and it shows. It’s a you never feel fiercely policed. Shuten world taken from one strand cast new light on
There’s one winning detail: you
dating-sim parody that tries, and fails, to mix a streak events in another. If you step back, its structure begins
bank key evidence with a noisy
of horror into proceedings. Putting aside the fact that click of the fingers, a delightfully to look like a grander version of the flowchart seen in
sending up romance games is already hackneyed (see OTT bit of detective posturing the technology ministry chapter, further proof that the
every April Fool’s day, when they’re treated as a that will make you constantly team is more comfortable in this mode than others. The
question whether someone is
punchline by sneering marketing departments), the real art of Shuten Order isn’t in the puzzle pieces, then,
rapidly removing and
execution is plodding. Our hero has three days to woo reconnecting Nintendo Switch but the finished picture. A shame constructing it
three high-school students, while managing the wrath Joy-Cons in an adjoining room. isn’t a more well-rounded journey.
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 ABOVE Events are energetically
presented, with brash manga-style
panels sitting alongside explorable
3D dioramas and striking character
illustrations from returning
Danganronpa artist simadoriru.
LEFT The escape-room portion
locks you into a murderous
livestream, complete with a
VTuber-style host and perpetual
commentary from the masses. No
demands for donations, fortunately.
BELOW The plot hinges on the
Shuten nation’s abhorrence of
all forms of violence, but that
doesn’t prevent the story from
racking up the mutilated bodies.
A dark heart beats under the
sunny anime exterior; sometimes
it’s yanked out for all to see

ABOVE The ministers under suspicion are a lively bunch, helpfully making
up for the charisma black hole that is our protagonist. That’s not entirely
her fault: amnesia renders her a passenger among more exciting lives

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Herdling

M
uch like Fumito Ueda, for its third major Developer Okomotive another headlong charge before the inevitable return
Publisher Panic
release Okomotive has wilfully ignored the to the original accompaniment. Until then, you’ll make
Format PC (tested), PS5, Switch,
old adage about working with children and Xbox Series beelines for patches of blue flowers, which refill what
animals. Indeed, Herdling’s opening initially comes Release Out now amounts to a collective stamina meter and enable you
off as an urban twist on The Last Guardian: our first to sustain the charge, and the rarer red ones, which
objective involves taming a strange-looking creature boost the herd’s speed, allowing for safe passage up
that combines elements of real-world animals (in this slippery slopes, for instance. How the game’s young
case, yak-like ungulates) with a dash of the fantastical. hero keeps up is anyone’s guess; it’s as if they’ve simply
The stone floor of a jail cell has been replaced by a been swept along by the giddy magic of the moment.
mattress beneath a noisy overpass, while our young
protagonist’s first encounter with the large beast that Okomotive smartly rations the faster
will be with them for the rest of their journey involves sequences throughout Herdling’s four-hour runtime,
prying a bucket from their nose with a stick instead of Suddenly, your and they make for a thrilling rush on each occasion.
plucking arrows from its flank. Taming this fellow is Yet it regularly pumps the brakes, and you must, too,
rather more straightforward, too: simply hold the herd is let off the in order to guide your charges to their destination.
topmost face button down for a few seconds to bring leash. As you Guiding them across open ground merely requires you
the calicorn under your command. In truth, this is to position yourself behind and to their right to send
probably for the best, since your job, as the title witness a train them veering left, and vice versa, but when the paths
suggests, isn’t to guide just one of these creatures
through the world, but several.
rattling along a narrow it takes a good deal more effort. The calicorns
may be fairly obedient, yet you can’t always corral them
This city-set tutorial has its moments – such as nearby track, it’s into tight formation, and there’s no way of getting them
when a more timid calicorn cowers beyond the influence to form into a neat line with a whistle as you might in
of your now-magical guiding stick, requiring the hard to resist the Pikmin. This adds a good deal of stress in situations of
reassuring presence of his kin to be coaxed out of hiding urge to race it real peril; should one of your number get a little too
– but otherwise gets Herdling off to a slightly shaky close to the edge of a crumbling cliffside, you’ll need to
start. It’s a little too obviously a tutorial, combining hurry over to pull them up or they’re gone for good.
conspicuous environmental highlights and instructional And the calicorns aren’t the only oversized fauna
text to the point where it feels like you are the one here: fierce owls, alerted by sound, call to mind Kuro
being shepherded. That’s a problem that never entirely from the Ori games. A typical Herdling set-piece begins
dissipates (when we’re later faced with a circular pit with a small, excitable newcomer spotting your herd and
with bundles of firewood nearby marked in bright blue, gleefully gambolling toward them, only to topple a pile
we needn’t be told to “find two pieces of wood to light a of rocks, the thump as they fall prompting a terrifying
fire”), yet it doesn’t rankle quite as much as you’d screech. Quickly feeding them a berry to get them back
expect. Advancing down a narrow street towards a on their hooves, you’ll need to manoeuvre carefully
warm, inviting light, what greets us at the end makes YAKCESSORISE around the arrangements of cairns in the next area, lest
us reconsider some of those clunky constraints. During occasional lulls, and the predator swoop down and sink its talons in. Once is
around the campfires that mark
Beneath a peaches-and-cream sky, we stride into a a warning, twice is fatal – and by this point you’ll have
the end of one day and the
welcoming expanse of countryside, the world stretching beginning of the next, you have grown too attached to your herd to accept that outcome.
out before us. You can almost sense Okomotive sharing time to take better care of your True, even as some calicorns demonstrate
in the wonder of its own experience: if Far: Lone Sails calicorns. Feeding them berries characteristics that diverge from ovine obedience –
replenishes their collective
and its successor were somewhat like being on a canal ‘affectionate’ types insist on being petted; ‘rascals’ are
stamina and allows them to
boat, locked to a fixed route, for the developer this recover from injury, yet there’s occasionally prone to mischief – your bond with them
moment must have felt like the equivalent of hitting the no obvious mechanical benefit is never quite as persuasive as that of the boy and Trico.
open sea. And so, having been taught how to steer your to petting or cleaning them. And yes, its environmental puzzles are simplistic to the
Rather, you do it because it
herd – that stick is more carrot, really, painting an end: a late-breaking mechanic when your journey is at
comes naturally – and perhaps
ethereal trail of blooms ahead of the pack to cajole them also because the branches that its most arduous should surely present more of a
onward – you’re now given the option to lead them in a get tangled in their hair after challenge than it delivers. But when watching your step
stampede by squeezing the right trigger and letting go. charging through brush are a demands you secure passage for up to 40 lumbering
little unsightly. Along the path
Hold, hold… and release: suddenly, you and your herd hooves, there is an undeniable sense of accomplishment
you’ll find accoutrements with
are let off the leash, and as you witness a train rattling which to decorate them, from at having kept your herd intact come the finish. And
along a nearby track, it’s hard to resist the urge to race it. harnesses to what look like here, after so much hardship, comes one more joyous
Your exhilaration is matched by the reactive stone earrings. Given that many release. Having asked you to follow its own lead once
of the adornments look similar,
soundtrack, which accelerates into a celebratory too often, Herdling finally allows you to lead by
though, trying to beautify your
crescendo, maintaining the tempo for a little longer herd can make it even harder example – in doing so, fulfilling what always felt
with less strident instrumentation as you prepare to pick out individuals. like an unspoken promise from the off.
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ABOVE Herdling’s challenges are less about formulating a plan of action
than successfully executing it. It’s a better game when it’s more instinctive,
trusting you to react to problems as they arrive, without overthinking

MAIN Sequences such as this look

a little more perilous than they are:
calicorns possess some instincts for
self-preservation. But the surface
of larger glaciers has an unnerving
habit of cracking suddenly.
ABOVE As well as blue and red
flowers, you’ll find the odd patch
of yellow blooms: these colour the
fur of your calicorns, allowing them
to trigger ancient mechanisms in
certain places along your trek.
LEFT Requiring you to press a
button twice to whistle your herd
to a standstill is a smart idea,
that slight delay lending tension
to some scenarios. Oddly, the
whistling noise fails to alert the
otherwise sound-sensitive owls

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 PLAY

Echoes Of The End

A
nyone who’s played a big-budget action- Developer Myrkur Games While Echoes Of The End’s levels are constructed from
Publisher Deep Silver
adventure game from the past 15 years may get common – overfamilar, even – patterns, the visual
Format PC (tested), PS5, Xbox Series
a sense of déjà vu from Echoes Of The End. With Release Out now design blocks your efforts to engage with them. What
its light and heavy attack combinations and guiding might look like a secondary pathway will be sealed off
checkpoints, it borrows (lightly) from Dark Souls. The by an invisible wall, while the main path is difficult to
powers and items you use to solve environmental parse amid cliff faces of grey stone. Much of the world
puzzles bear the whiff of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and is slate, difficult to read at a glance. You can’t get lost
the Tomb Raider reboots. As in the Last Of Us and God (that might be interesting), but you can waste your time.
Of War, an AI companion with complementary abilities As slim as it is next to many of its contemporaries (at
follows you on your travels. In fairness, this game is a ten to 15 hours’ play), progress feels slow to a fault.
modest production in comparison to those heavyweights,
yet as such it needs to distinguish itself somehow, as Combat doesn’t fare much better, mimicking
did, say, A Plague Tale: Innocence. Instead it reminds us While the game the loose framework of that in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen
of the careful craft in those other games, not by matching Order. Magic powers are used for crowd control or to
it but by showing what happens when it’s missing. can be tough, augment special attacks, and XP feeds a skill tree that
At the root of the game is a banal fantasy, enriched it’s hardly ever increases your strength and your options. At least, it
only by the sheen of Unreal Engine and tinges of Myrkur does in theory. If the advantage of open progression
Games’ native Icelandic folklore. It’s constructed of because you’re paths is to give you more strategic agency, that rarely
familiar components: a father figure (the techy Abram)
teaches a young woman (protagonist Ryn) to open up
presented with materialises here. While the game can be tough, it’s
hardly ever because you’re presented with an interesting
and trust. Ryn is a ‘Vestige’, able to manipulate the an interesting challenge – you can use the same tricks from beginning
environment with her mind; her powers make her both to end to win battles, and fresh enemy types are
dangerous and special. In the bigger picture, an evil challenge introduced at a languid pace. If anything, the main
empire threatens a smaller nation. As they tour the impact of the skill tree is to stifle creative encounter
world to rescue Ryn’s kidnapped brother, the pair banter design. Since Myrkur’s designers can’t build situations
and yap, but their dialogue fails to fizz. Backstories and around abilities they don’t know you’ll have, the game
lore are explored, but without emotional heft or can’t develop in step with its protagonist, nor can new
chemistry. This is a tale that lacks poetic silence, the enemies be introduced to correspond with Ryn’s new
halting word, the intimate gesture. abilities. On approaching the umpteenth fight with the
And if the world is as pretty as a picture, it has exact same group of goblins, then, it’s hard to muster
the depth of one, too. It’s impressive in the way a tech the enthusiasm even to draw your sword.
demo can be – the particle effects dance, and detailed That leaves some light puzzling and platforming,
textures give rocks and foliage a dense fidelity. Yet and, as you may be expecting by this point, they aren’t
somehow the result is a vague approximation of trends very accomplished either. Prepare to arrange boxes to
and habits. In stills, the landscapes may be striking, but climb over obstacles, follow a guide scrawled on a wall
they lack any unique focal point or structure. Each area MUFFLED ECHOES to place ancient statues, and reconstruct ruins to open a
Alongside other irritations,
duly comprises sets of teetering wooden structures and path. These are obvious, well-rehearsed activities, but
our trudge through Echoes
solemn stone monuments, sometimes speckled with Of The End is hampered by nonetheless take time to execute, with nothing left to
glowing blue crystals. But this fantasy setting is unable technical problems. Most ponder as you do. And that execution is hindered by
to offer anything actually fantastic. It’s a worn-out egregiously, we get off on the Ryn’s modest agility. Platforming is scrambling and
wrong foot as we find ourselves
parade of skeletons, goblins and overfamiliar ruins. loose, which in one sense is fine – nothing in Echoes Of
unable to progress after a couple
Indeed, few would guess that this was a story of hours and have to begin The End demands precision – but it can be difficult to
influenced by a particular nation’s myths and folklore, again from scratch. And even judge distances and land in quite the right place. Most
Icelandic or otherwise, if it wasn’t stated in the with that hurdle surmounted, of the time, a false jump will only take a sliver of health
less serious infractions pile up:
marketing material. The only obvious evidence lies in and drop you back where you were, but sometimes
some checkpoints load us into
the many proper nouns, such as Durtar and Reigendal. areas of danger, with enemy falling off a cliffside kills you instantly. An experience
But when one is a race of orc-like foes and the other attacks incoming, or perhaps that seems designed to be smooth thus becomes a
the name of the enemy nation across the border, these with Ryn stuck fast in the floor. matter of constant friction.
True, certain issues have since
are little more than bywords for the familiar. Echoes Of This is the contrast that defines Echoes Of The End.
been addressed with a launch
The End trades in tropes and clichés – ancient cities, patch, but in an experience The games it apes work because they’re easy to engage
long-lost relics and unlikely friendships. that’s already struggling to with and paced to banish boredom. Here, everything
Beneath all that is a simple, linear adventure, split distinguish itself, these kinds takes ages and is sprinkled with tiny irritations.
of hitches feel like nails in the
only by occasional side routes promising treasure and Appropriately, given its title, the game can offer only
coffin. More bugs should be
XP. However, the realistic appearance of the eradicated in time, but running a muted reverberation of its inspirations, with the
environments can make it hard to find your way. repairs will only solve so much. exception of recreating their flaws quite capably.
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 LEFT Abram battles alongside
you, freezing smaller infantry with
his crystal armlet and grabbing
opponents so Ryn can attack freely.
MAIN Most of the combat in
Echoes Of The End involves crowd
control. Enemies with shields block
and haggle, while foes with
slingshots bombard you.
BOTTOM The game can look pretty
and isn’t short on detail, but rarely
does it present anything truly
memorable. You’ve seen many
fantasy worlds like this before

ABOVE Ryn’s Vestige powers are a key part of the narrative and combat.
Her abilities can attack multiple foes, or distract individual ones, but all
have limited uses. That push and pull is one of the game’s stronger ideas

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Abyssus

R
oguelikes and firstperson shooters appear ideally Developer DoubleMoose Games turrets that excel at dealing passive damage. Indeed, the
Publisher The Arcade Crew
matched, given their shared emphasis on reactivity mini-turrets provide an ideal case study for the tactical
Format PC
and thriving in the moment. But combining the Release Out now options at your disposal. You can bless them with the
two is tricky. The best FPS games have carefully crafted ability to freeze enemies, or you could infuse them with
levels and combat encounters tested to destruction. the barrier ability, building up a shield for your
Yielding this ground to procedural generation and the character with each shot they fire. Perhaps most devious
whims of chance typically results in uneven shooters, of all, infusing them with the tentacle power enables
as the likes of Strafe and Mothergunship demonstrate. your turrets to spawn passive allies, supporting you
Abyssus, therefore, deserves credit for being a Roguelike with a small army of projectile-lobbing minions.
FPS that works, even if it doesn’t solve the problems But Abyssus’ chasm of upgrades plunges deeper still.
that a Roguelike structure brings to FPS play. The thrills Between runs, you can spend ‘fragments’ to unlock
it supplies through blending gun-based action with a permanent upgrades which affect your character and
run-based power trip outweigh the shortcomings of its A descent the map. Some are straightforward boosts to damage,
repetitive arenas and occasionally wonky combat. health and the like. Others unlock temporary upgrades
Seeing Abyssus at its best does require tolerating through you can access during a run, such as smaller shrines
some initial drudgery. Themed around a descent through archaeological that provide a raw stat boost to a specific blessing, and
the archaeological strata of a sunken civilisation, it ancient forges where you can augment the effectiveness
plays at the outset like a diet Doom Eternal. Your Welsh- strata, it plays of your weapon and ability, increasing your available
accented diver can blast enemies with the primary and
alternate fire of his chosen weapon (a light machine gun
at the outset turrets from two to five, for example. Further unlockable
monuments include wishing wells and sacrificial altars,
by default), deploy a tertiary ability such as a grenade, like a diet where you can gamble gold or health for bonuses.
and dash and double jump to avoid enemies.
All of this is capably designed, if a little lightweight. Doom Eternal This confluence of systems flows in a satisfying
While your machine gun makes a decent starting manner, its various tributaries energising the shooting
weapon, the subsequent shotgun is squid-limp – an ill which at first seemed so unremarkable. The fact you can
omen for any FPS. The procedurally connected cave carry just one weapon into a run feels like a bust at the
network you run through functions as a combat arena, start – exactly the sort of restriction that dooms other
but is otherwise a stale space, while the initial enemy Roguelike shooters – but that decision becomes
roster resembles rejected designs from BioShock’s meaningful and exciting when you begin pondering the
Rapture – a gaggle of flying mechanical sharks, many ways that specific firearms can be empowered.
spinning death-Roombas and lumbering Big Doggies. If Abyssus is a triumph mechanically, though, it’s a
Once the Roguelike elements kick in, however, these little lost at sea in terms of theme. Despite being
flaws begin to fade. Abyssus’ power trip begins with structured as a descent through underwater
glowing shrines where you receive ‘blessings’ – powers environments, each level representing a lower depth,
that can be attached to your primary fire, secondary fire, DIVE TEAM the concept isn’t communicated particularly well. There
and ability. These range from elemental forces such as Abyssus is designed with are some dramatic moments, such as dropping down to
cooperative play in mind, with
lightning that chains between enemies to more unusual a giant whirlpool in anticipation of a boss encounter,
support for up to four players.
powers such as ‘spirit’, which spawns tiny ghosts that Multiplayer Abyssus is but compared to, say, Spelunky, your journey is generally
propel themselves at adversaries, and ‘tentacle’, where considerably flashier than the more horizontal than vertical, and one depth feels much
spectral appendages toss detritus at opponents. solo game, with four times the like another within any given zone.
number of blessings popping
You can choose between two blessings per shrine, In addition, the different zones have no real logic or
off on screen. And while
and once you’ve gained a power you can upgrade it at enemies are meatier than in consistency to make your adventure feel like a naturally
subsequent shrines. While the selection isn’t huge, every singleplayer to compensate for progressing journey. The first is a network of dripping
blessing can be devilishly powerful when upgraded and your combined damage output, caves littered with decaying shipwrecks and brass
on the whole it’s slightly easier
combined with other systems. They only become more automata, while the second shifts to an Aztec-themed
with a group due to players’
so once you’ve unlocked additional weapons and ability to revive one another labyrinth of ruins populated by hostile anthropomorphic
abilities, which are considerably more interesting than during combat. Otherwise, the frogs. Compounding this is a story that could charitably
your opening arsenal, including a beam-firing Tesla experience is largely similar. be described as minimalist – limited to a handful of
Unlike many shooters that
cannon. Then there’s the scoped revolver which, despite notes you discover between combat encounters. If a
facilitate co-op, Abyssus is
its modest appearance, might be the best gun in the equally pleasurable played with compelling underwater adventure is what you’re after,
game. Its rapid-fire primary makes mincemeat of basic friends or alone. Solo play suits BioShock remains your best bet, while Roguelike fans
enemies, while an optional charged secondary more the nature of a Roguelike, that seeking a strong story would be better off descending to
sense you’re one slip away from
than makes up for the disappointing shotgun. Hades or its sequel. If a chance to see the FPS Roguelike
oblivion. Co-op broadens that
Abilities, meanwhile, include a massive anchor for tightrope a little, but its done right appeals, though, Abyssus’ synthesis of
walloping groups of enemies, and deployable mini- presence remains keenly felt. systems is an enjoyable enough choice.
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 LEFT The Tesla gun’s alt-fire shoots
an orb of bouncing energy, useful
for ‘tagging’ enemies with certain
blessings, such as fire or frost.
BELOW Blood blessings deal
additional damage based on your
current health, making it one of
the more challenging abilities in
terms of how you stand to benefit.
MAIN Whatever build you choose,
mastering your dash ability is
essential, especially during solo
play, where bosses will begin to
properly test your evasion skills

ABOVE The barrier blessing, which allows you to build up a shield with
each shot, is tremendously useful for conserving your health, although it
can be easy to rely on it too much, at the expense of damage output

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Drag X Drive

W
e could argue all day about which controller Developer/publisher limited. (Wary of wearing out trouser fabric, you might
Nintendo (Nintendo EPD)
is king, but there’s nothing quite as elegant be tempted to place a blanket over your legs – not ideal
Format Switch 2
and versatile as the mouse. In endowing its Release Out now during a warm August.) But while this is functional,
Switch 2 Joy-Cons with rodent power, Nintendo has unevenness can cause inconsistencies – annoying in the
instantly ensured that certain types of games feel all the more exacting park challenges. Optimal performance
more at home on its machine. But given that versatility, may come, then, from sitting at a desk or with a hard
is there a reason why dual-wielding mice has never surface on your lap, and that doesn’t seem intuitive.
caught on? With Drag X Drive we have a perfect test- Still, once we’re actually playing matches, such
case scenario and, well, the jury’s still out. concerns take a back seat. Movements tend to be bigger
This cybernetic 3v3 wheelchair basketball sim and bolder as you race up and down the court. The rules
balances on a control system that is, somehow, both are simple but smart – the way steals are handled, for
intuitive and untameable at once. A mouse in each example, by bumping a ball carrier from the front,
hand, you mimic the motions of propelling a wheelchair, encourages players to protect possession by turning
exercising your arms like pistons. It’s a throwback to their backs, looking for openings to pass or sprint
the era of Wii Sports, but more reactive, every push PARK LIFE around. Blocking is also tactically important, not least
corresponding exactly to the movement of the onscreen Rather than have you jump into when a teammate has possession, as you try to stop
games with any random player,
wheels. Try some of the time-trial challenges dotted opponents intercepting their run to the basket. Speaking
Drag X Drive places you and up
around the game’s arena ‘park’ and you should learn to 11 others in the same park, of which, the decision to ring the court with quarter-
fine control. A brake button for each wheel enables then periodically organises pipe ramps is inspired. Nothing beats speeding towards
you to spin on a dime from a dash. Three-point turns matches from this pool – 3v3 or the hoop and soaring off the ramp for a showy dunk.
2v2, depending on the numbers
become second nature. The Joy-Cons still aren’t ergonomic enough for long
available. Between games you
Less natural, though, is how to set up to play. On can practise challenges or take sessions, but ultimately that isn’t the biggest issue. As
a sofa, it makes sense to use the sitting area’s surface part in group minigames. It all diverting as it can be, this is a slim offering, a paucity
for propulsion, switching to our thighs when space is feels a bit unnecessary when of customisation options, game modes and progress
you simply want a few quick
markers providing no higher-level hook. If Nintendo has
Many online opponents we’ve encountered so far prefer to focus on three- matches, but should come into
its own as a hangout spot made us look again at the mouse, Drag X Drive
point shots, but we’re not sure why, given their low rate of success. Plenty
of our wins are founded on quick and easy strikes from within the paint when playing with friends. will need much more to keep the wheels turning. 5

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Is This Seat Taken?

Y
ou can’t please all the people all the time, so the Developer Poti Poti Studio There’s a sense of mild satisfaction to be found in
Publisher Wholesome Games
saying goes, yet here is a puzzle game that asks watching people’s moods about-face as you shift them
Format PC (tested), Switch
you to find a way. All that’s needed to make Release Out now around, and in finding a pattern that suits them all (or
everyone happy is an organising force to put them in catharsis in venting your frustration at a particularly
their places. And so, in a range of everyday situations ill-fitting miscreant when you’ve yet to find that
from bus rides to beach visits, you’re asked to pick up perfect layout). Yet a strong concept is limited by its
and drop little polygonal people in seating plans that own need to sit on the lap of cosy gaming, exposing an
satisfy their needs. absence of deliberate devilry in the design. Situations
This is a game about social etiquette, but also about repeat – needless to say, you spend a lot of time on
the personal rituals of choosing where to sit. Why does public transport – evolving in complexity at a granular
one individual find certain public behaviour beyond the rate. And any interesting wrinkles – for example, on
pale while it barely registers with the next? So, someone cramped football terraces you have to consider that
has forgotten to shower, while someone else has flag-waving fans can’t be placed next to rivals, while
overdone the aftershave – strangely common here – ROUGH DIAMOND like-minded supporters begin singing when grouped
and as one patron abhors all strong odours, a second is The many locations here are together, spreading noise – are fleeting, and only push
disturbed only by the bodily kind, and a third will gladly linked by the story of Nat, a the puzzle logic gently.
rhombus who wants to be an
sit within the stink as long as they’re next to a friend, Equally absent is a sharpness to the humour,
actor but doesn’t feel like she
or their precious rucksack. Indeed, the demands here quite fits in with the other despite subject matter that would surely have benefitted
can be amusingly selfish: if people weren’t already shapes around her. “Who from a darker treatment. The message here that any
categorised as adults or kids, you’d struggle to identify would want to cast a weird wishes can be accommodated somehow, to the point
shape like me in a movie?” she
the grownups in the room. One fellow in the cinema that relaxing river cruisers might tolerate a party at the
asks. Nat tours around Europe
insists on wearing his ten-gallon hat throughout. and beyond in the game, stern of the boat, refuses to mock the antisocial
Another will only turn his frown upside down if his popping up in various scenes, absurdity of some of these demands. In its earnestness,
neighbour has popcorn that can be stolen. making friends who help bring here is a kind of inclusivity that indulges selfishness
her closer to realising her
and segregation over attempts to adapt and find
A bonus stage is unlocked if you leave everyone smiling and achieve a ambition. It’s enough to give the
game a narrative spine, even if common ground. In trying to please us all, it
perfect rating on a whole string of stages, but it’s only on very few occasions
that we fail to arrive at a perfect solution simply by completing a level it’s all admittedly rather trite. leaves a deeper puzzle unsolved. 6

107
 TIME EXTEND

It Came From
The Desert
Cinemaware’s B-movie homage pushed the
vision of interactive cinema to new heights

Developer/publisher Cinemaware Format Amiga, PC, TurboGrafx Release 1989

108
 ou awaken in a bed at Falcon transformed scenes from classic
Melville Memorial swashbuckling adventures into brief action
Hospital. Nurse Judy, sequences, among them a scimitar duel with
concerned as ever your foe, the Black Prince, and a climb up
(it’s not your first the side of a cliff while trying to dodge
visit, after all), fills in tumbling boulders. For once, the visual
the blanks as a spectacle was accompanied by meaningful
throbbing headache player inputs. These weren’t 20-second
hampers your efforts at recollection. cutscenes offset by a single button press,
Driving along the road linking Beverly’s these were consequence-bearing choices
Drive-in with the National Guard Armoury, and lengthy tests of players’ skills.
close to the southern border of Lizard Breath, Winning a mediaeval tournament or
you met the local greaser gang, the Hellcats, completing a tough platforming section
who wanted to play chicken against the big- unscathed was more gratifying than passing
city nerd. You didn’t flinch – but neither any of the quick-time events in Dragon’s
did they. Now, everything hurts, and it’s Lair. Still, the minigames that typified early
tempting to rest for a while. So far, your Cinemaware output felt fundamentally
investigation has raised little more than the detached from their accompanying stories, a
suspicions of the town authorities and the series of loosely connected episodes that
locals’ hardly concealed ridicule. But you could be played in any order (or even
have to get back on your feet, gather some skipped) and had no radical bearing on the
evidence, and try to convince anyone who narrative. The studio had injected
might listen that this community is about interactivity into cinematic storytelling, but
to be destroyed by giant radioactive ants. still hadn’t succeeded in seamlessly
For decades, game-makers and players blending the two.
alike have dreamed of the ‘interactive movie’,
a videogame that combines the visual Enter game designer David Riordan.
spectacle and complex storytelling of cinema A film industry veteran, Riordan had
with the newer medium’s open-endedness worked at LucasArts (then Lucasfilm
and direct engagement – the ability to Games), co-developing 1985 future-sports
affect what’s happening on screen. Even the sim Ballblazer and obscure LaserDisc rail
earliest, experimental ‘movie games’ were shooter Freedom Fighter. He was also one of
able to look the part – those FMV titles that the writers of Sugarloaf’s 1970 hit song,
briefly dominated in the ’90s and analogue- Green-Eyed Lady. Now, Cinemaware handed
video prototypes such as 1974’s Wild him its most ambitious project to date: a
Gunman boasted at least some Hollywood homage to B-movies and 1950s monster
glamour, and filmic credibility. But because schlock, fuelled by player choice and a
they relied on prerecorded footage to decision-based, emergent narrative – It
achieve those effects, any interactions Came From The Desert.
afforded to the player were limited. In the game, Dr Greg Bradley couldn’t
Cinemaware wanted to make something have picked a better (or worse) time to come
more hands-on. Founded in 1986 by film to Lizard Breath. A meteor has crashed near
buff Bob Jacob, the studio, whose name the volcanic craters surrounding the town,
doubled as a mission statement (movies, making research prospects significantly
but playable – cinema meets software), more intriguing for the young geologist. But
aimed to develop games inspired by popular as the first day of fieldwork draws to a close,
film genres, and to capture something of there’s a growing sense of terror. The
their essence. Defender Of The Crown, its decapitated carcass of a cow has been
debut and an Amiga 500 killer app in 1986, discovered at JD’s farm; strange lights have
referenced several historical epics, from been seen over the quarry; and there are
Ivanhoe to The Adventures Of Robin Hood, tensions at Neptune Hall, the HQ of a
and featured various ‘cinematic’ minigames, strange local cult, which is bound to an
including a castle siege, a jousting aquatic god. These are only distractions,
tournament, and a late-night rescue mission. however. Lizard Breath’s real cause for
Likewise, Sinbad And The Throne Of The concern is a colony of giant ants, mutated
TIME EXTEND

by the meteor’s impact, and on its way to

kill everyone in town. As Bradley, your job is
to convince everybody you’re sane and help
them get out of Dodge before it’s too late.
It Came From The Desert immerses you in
Bradley’s mission via a tightly designed
setting, recognisable from the great monster
movies of the double-bill era – Gordon
Douglas’ Them! is an obvious reference, but
there are subtler hints of Invasion Of The
Body Snatchers’ post-war paranoia and the complex temporal structure, which allows Your trouble (and a dizzying
assortment of branching
fear of scientific overreach as evinced in for the various B, C and D plots of the paths) starts with an
Tarantula. There’s also a colourful cast of multi-threaded narrative to progress in agitated donkey and a
characters, all with their own subplots. Your realtime, independent of your actions. It’s handful of meteor fragments

conflict with the leather-jacketed Hellcats staggeringly ambitious and a byproduct of

culminates in a knife fight at the drive-in. pure naïveté: Riordan once admitted that
The exuberant Professor Wells is as much “when we got into some of the narrative and
of a help with his scientific insights as a design stuff, we didn’t know what we were
public-relations hindrance with his doing. Nobody did”. But it’s all this
reputation as a crackpot. Festus Bartlett is blending, and trying to synthesise

THE OVERALL EFFECT IS A LIVING WORLD

IN WHICH EVERY CHOICE AFFECTS THE
S T O R Y, A T R U E I N T E R A C T I V E M O V I E

the scheming mayor doing his best to something new, that gives It Came From The
discredit your claims, unwilling to let Desert its two greatest qualities. There’s no
anything disrupt the preparations for a right or wrong way to play the game. There
forthcoming festival. And, of course, there’s are only different paths, leading to equally
Dusty, the soft-spoken, ever-helpful, almost convincing denouements. And repeat
angelic love interest. A far cry from Defender playthroughs may reveal totally different
Of The Crown’s interchangeable barons and parts of the story.
nameless knights, these are fully fleshed- As hard as developers try to camouflage
out individuals, with personal quirks, daily it, most games take a spatial approach to
routines and narrative arcs. time – nothing interesting happens unless
the player is there to observe it. Even when
What really differentiates It Came the illusion of realtime activity is created,
From The Desert, not only from every other such as the daily comings and goings in an
interactive movie game of the time but from Elder Scrolls village, meaningful changes
the majority of story-driven titles in rarely take place in your absence. In
general, is how it organises your contrast, It Came From The Desert constantly
interactions with these characters and presents you with the dilemma of how to
A lose-lose situation: totalling embroils you in the events that unfold use your time. Will you make the trip to the
the Hellcats’ car will infuriate
their leader, Ice, who will
between your arrival and the festival. mines (a 90-minute drive) where some
summon you at the drive-in Riordan and Cinemaware experiment with a highly radioactive mineral samples were

110
STRAIGHT
TO VIDEO
By the mid 1990s,
game developers
had established new Arguably the toughest
approaches to the action sequence in the
concept of the game, escaping the
interactive movie via hospital will require you
games such as Night to hide in unoccupied
Trap, Harvester and rooms and creative
Phantasmagoria. While use of a wheelchair
FMV made it more
straightforward for
games to borrow
Hollywood star power
(see Christopher
Walken’s turn in 1996 found, or will you pay a visit to the Desert the game’s earliest confrontations with the
murder mystery Star offices to check on Bert, the smarmy ants. On the contrary, if you happen to be
Ripper), player
interaction was pulled local reporter, hoping he’ll share a new lead? toiling elsewhere at that particular moment,
right back. But even No choice is wrong, but you can’t do it all. you’re likely to miss this entire subplot.
before it became
extant, Cinemaware The overall effect is a living, breathing
appeared willing to With only 15 in-game days between world in which every choice directly affects
drop It Came From The
Desert’s open-ended your arrival and the festival (which just the story, a true interactive movie where you
narrative and intricate happens to begin on the day when the ants actively shape an open-ended narrative
temporal structure in
favour of the FMV-
will have amassed enough numbers to rather than jump through a series of
game gimmick. For assault the town properly), time becomes predetermined hoops. It’s a degree of
the TurboGrafx version your most vital resource. Major events rush freedom and agency that even contemporary
in 1991, all of the
conversation scenes by whether you’re there to witness them or examples of the adventure genre, such as the
were replaced with not. You might be misled by a red herring, games of Quantic Dream, are still trying to
FMV sequences, which
severely limited the or get stuck, strapped to that bed for the attain, and only sometimes succeeding. And
narrative scope. next couple of days owing to the hospital’s it turns Cinemaware’s trademark succession
diligent staff. But even inactivity can produce of minigames into tense, consequence-filled
surprising results: if you laze around at encounters rather than disconnected
The ants’ tough exoskeleton home instead of scouring the desert for excuses for interactivity. Losing that knife
renders them impervious to clues, at noon on the second day, a knock at fight, crashing your survey plane or getting
your bullets, leaving their
wiggling antennae as their
the door – a young woman who’s crashed mauled by an enormous ant will cost you
only vulnerable spot her car and is injured – can lead to one of days in the hospital, bringing Lizard Breath
closer to its doom.
More importantly, It Came From The
Desert’s temporal structure means that
minor defeats are incorporated into the
narrative, making it a rare example of a game
that validates failure. In this, it feels like a
spiritual ancestor to the work of
Supermassive and games such as Until Dawn
and The Quarry, where the stories move ever
forward and accommodate you without
forcing you to restart or reload. If all your
lapses in judgement and bad decisions
result in catastrophe, and giant ants overrun
Lizard Breath as the credits roll, well, not
every movie has a happy ending.

111
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 T H E L O N G G A M E

A progress report on the games we just can’t quit

Heretic + Hexen
Developer Raven Software Publisher Id Software Format PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Original release 1994, 1995

W
hile Wolfenstein 3D laid the technical captivating, the pseudo-sequel is uncooperative and
groundwork for the FPS genre and Doom obscure. Its multi-stage puzzles and elaborate, freeform
pioneered its experiential spirit, Heretic was levels, lacking navigation markers, make Hexen feel as
one of the earliest explorations of how the shooter if it was built for pure longevity – in 1995, momentum
could be made more mechanically sophisticated. You (of the action or any kind of dramatic or ‘narrative’
had an extra button so you could use power-ups momentum) was apparently less important than
whenever you wanted, prompting you to think more creating the impression that the game would last a
strategically. Collecting the Tome Of Power effectively long time, and that if you enjoyed the free shareware
granted every weapon a secondary fire mode. As well demo, it was worth buying the full thing.
as left and right, you could look up and down. But if you want a history of videogame clichés,
Playing Heretic today, the additions that Raven then the synaptic, inter-level hub world – Demon’s
Software made to the incipient Doom and Wolfenstein Souls’ Nexus, God Of War’s Lake Of Nine, Control’s
gameplay feel less important; if Heretic has a legacy, Oldest House – has its roots in Hexen. Likewise, it’s a
it’s because of its more abstract qualities, such as the primeval example of a class-based FPS – the Fighter,
fluidity of its level design (Michael Raymond-Judy is Cleric and Mage circle-strafed so that the Assault,
equal, maybe superior to, John Romero in this respect) Support, Recon and Engineer could tactical sprint.
and its fantasy-action-horror aesthetic. It’s ambitious, While quick saves, a more comprehensive UI, controller
but feels rooted in a visionary and disciplined kind of support and higher framerates and image resolutions
authorship, where the vivid nature of its creators’ ideas have been added to the rerelease, the new version of
aren’t lessened by its scale – all action, or rather all Hexen represents an effort to preserve gaming’s past.
interaction, but still cohesive. Andrew Hushult’s Since it’s presented more or less unchanged, and the
remastered score becomes a metaphor for how Heretic only significant alterations are to make it digestible
is still relevant, perhaps more than ever, in 2025. for modern machines and displays, it shows both
Like it always was, Hexen is the harder game to how much the discipline of game-making has
love; if Heretic is fluent, readable and immediately developed and what has been lost in that process.

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October 2

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