Table of contents for August 2023 in PLAY

Another one?” we hear you groan at the ‘royale’ part of this kart racer’s subtitle. Indeed, with 60 players, this is an engine-revving twist on the battle royale trend that many developers have attempted to chase in recent years (in many cases, sadly, unsuccessfully). But if anyone’s able to make it to the podium, it should be Sumo Digital. We implore you to pay attention to this free-to-play rival as it nears the grid. While the studio behind it, Sumo Leamington, is a newer branch of the parent company, that doesn’t devalue the fantastic work Sumo Digital has put into making arcadey racers that simply feel great in the hands, whether they’re licenced projects like Disney Infinity 3.0’s racing levels and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed (perhaps the best…

What a thrill to see Snake in action again. The long-rumoured Metal Gear remake is here, with Konami and Virtuous developing a remake of the third game titled Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater. That’s, erm, Metal Gear Solid pointy thing? Pyramid? Triangle? Ah, Metal Gear Solid Delta. How’s that for codebreaking? Following on from Metal Gear Survive, it’s the first game in the series in five years, and the second since Hideo Kojima’s high-profile split from Konami. It joins a bevy of recently-announced Silent Hills, and follows some internal division-shuffling a couple of years back. The message is clear: Konami wants to revitalise its big gaming series. From the little we’ve seen, Delta appears to be a very faithful remake. The jungle has been prettied up, but even elements…

We all know the ‘S’ in RTS stands for strategy, but did you know that the ‘r’ and ‘t’ mean real-time? As in, actual time passing while you fumble with the pad and enemies pummel your little units into plastic kibble (here Warhammer’s Stormcast Eternals and Orruk Kruleboyz, with two more factions to be announced). The console RTS is a famously tough front line to break through (though Company Of Heroes 3, p88, is a valiant attempt). But feel powerless no longer. For Warhammer Age Of Sigmar: Realms Of Ruin, Frontier Developments is employing its trademarked DirectStep control scheme, and it’ll have you flicking the stick with delightful vigour. You can select units (and construct custom groups on the fly) with a jab of the left stick. The same technique…

You’ve a yo-yo, a bubble wand, a slinky, a flying disc: these probably wouldn’t be your first choice of tools for exploring a shadowy underground labyrinth. But then Shared Memory’s subterranean adventure is no ordinary dungeon crawl. This Well is at least as wide as it is deep, but its secrets go beyond that. This place has layers, and we’re not just talking about those unsettling shifting backgrounds. You play as a tiny blob with eyes (birthed from a flower, so maybe you’re a seedling – the first of many mysteries) with no obvious goal apart from to investigate your strange surroundings. Unlike in other metroidvania-style games, Animal Well’s world doesn’t scroll. Once you enter each new screen, you usually have time to pause and figure out where you’d like…

“EVERY ASPECT OF ITS LABYRINTHINE SETTING IS GOTHIC IN THE EXTREME.” Did you see Mad Max?” asks Juan Miguel López, the concept artist behind this metroidvania’s dark and brooding world. “Well, Mad Max 2 was kind of the same but with money.” An old-fashioned sequel where almost everything that worked in the original has been enhanced, Blasphemous 2 certainly shows how a little extra budget can go a long way. During our time with it, one of the most obvious upgrades is in the new approach to storytelling: lavish hand-drawn animated cutscenes have replaced the somewhat lifeless still images used in its predecessor. Despite this change, the wider narrative framing remains almost the same and the focus is still very much on crafting a sombre atmosphere shaped by esoteric lore.…

The rogue, sunken city-state of Zaun is a place that’s forgotten at best, and outright vilified at worst. It’s a place that slowly kills its citizens, twisting bodies and psyches via a potent cocktail of foul pollutants, copious drug abuse, and unfettered body modification. But in this horrifying place there is one bright light. Ekko is an inventor, a prodigy doing his utmost to create a safe haven within Zaun, and it’s his trinkets that turn the city from a deathtrap into a playground. Convergence is an action platformer within a metroidvania structure; as Ekko travels the city, he’ll find areas he can’t yet access, and so he’ll need a new gadget in order to move on. It’s a relatively gentle curve; upgrades are tied to the narrative, and much…

Summer holidays are exciting when you’re young. You get out of school at the start of a long break, endless possibilities for having fun awaiting you. No teachers, no homework… what’s stopping you riding a bike into the woods with your friends to see what you can discover? Adventure lurks even in the most mundane of places, if you’ve enough imagination. But what about vampires? LCB Games has made a name for itself on PC by dragging the aesthetic of MS-DOS adventure games into the modern day, combining pixel art with folkloric creatures and rich prose. In a screenshot its work can look garish and unwelcoming, neon colours distorting any sense of reality. Yet this is by deliberate, odd, wonderful design. THE LOST BOYS (AND GIRL) Most of us have…

Any game covering real-life warfare risks being crushed by the weight of history, but even more so a mediocre entry to an established series that’s been ten years coming. And while it’s not the fault of Company Of Heroes 3 specifically that being ported from PC to console doesn’t always go smoothly, many of its other shortcomings were there from the start. What’s more, the porting (which is mostly adequate – somewhat uncomfortable, but definitely not the worst we’ve seen, especially for a game in a genre with a UI as busy as real-time strategy’s often is) ends up being a fairly accurate representation of the game as a whole: passable, but far from perfect. Passing over the more commonly explored Eastern and Western Fronts to focus on the Mediterranean…

When he arrives in the sleepy little town of Ashihara in Japan, Novum, called Nini for short, has changed dramatically. Monsters called Kegai crashed the space station he’d lived on all his life, killing his parents and forcing him to move to Earth. Ashihara is one of the last places safe from the Kegai, but not for long. Instead, the Kegai successfully attack Ashihara a few days after his arrival, and even though Nini tries to stop them, he dies and the world ends. When he wakes up, however, it’s the day of his arrival in Japan again, and a small piece of history repeats itself. The end of the world will reoccur unless Nini becomes strong enough to drive the Kegai off, and in order to do that he…

They don’t call it a flagship event for nothing. Alongside a slew of brain-tickling activities dishing out Primogems and even a free character in the Wisdom Gala, the limited-time event for Version 3.6 enjoyed bespoke, lovingly animated cutscenes. The main story event, the Interdarshan Championship, saw scholars of all stripes competing. Cash-strapped architect Kaveh could use the prize money to get out of his cohabiting situation with the excruciatingly rational Alhaitham, but then there was pun master Cyno, who only had eyes for the Genius Invokation TCG card that was up for grabs. To be clear, he already had this card, but this version was shiny. FOMO remains a powerful tool for developers within the free-to-play space. Also included within the prize pool was the Diadem Of Knowledge, an artefact…

This is Doom – it says so on the title screen and everything – but not in the way you might expect. Effectively a reboot of what had gone before, so different was it when it was first released on PC in 2004 that it split opinions like a well-placed bullet in a demon’s head.1 In the space year 2023, it’s just a fun FPS. Rather than being a simplistic blaster like the first few games, or delivering the adrenaline rush of the modern entries, Doom 3 is a fairly slow-paced adventure with plenty of emphasis on storytelling. The acting isn’t great (to be honest, some of it is hilariously bad), but that just adds to the charm. Make no mistake, you’ll soon lose count of how many zombies and…

Asking you to investigate a suicide in a mansion in the middle of a bayou, Alone In The Dark pioneered the survival horror genre. Its vast, open-ended environments were filled with tricky puzzles, tough enemies, and plenty of secrets, and many of its best innovations then went on to inspire the developers of the first Resident Evil. Now, after several sequels and one unsuccessful reboot, the devs are taking a leaf out of Capcom’s Resi playbook and bringing things back to basics with a full-on reimagining of the first game. Although the aim is to adhere closely to the original plot, its dual protagonists (private investigator Edward Carnby and the victim’s niece Emily Hartwood) are being played by big-name actors: David Harbour (who previously flexed his investigative muscles as police…

“LIKE IN REAL LIFE, YOU CAN’T SATISFY EVERYONE, PLAYERS AREN’T IN CONTROL.” The sea is a fickle mistress, and an important aspect of games made by Copenhagen-based indie developer Die Gute Fabrik. In 2019’s Mutazione, teenager Kai visits an island of mutants who live, trade, and move around on boats following a calamity. The studio’s new game, Saltsea Chronicles, imagines a similarly watery world – after the sea has reclaimed large swathes of land post-climate change, new communities spring up. It’s the story of a group of friends on a journey to find a missing comrade and help neighbouring communities. After an evening of storytelling, Maja, one of the group, suddenly disappears. The rest of them, including young Iris, diver Stew, new mother Molpe (who’s also Maja’s partner), and well-spoken…

THE BIG GUNS PlayStation and friends keep the big-budget solo adventure alive Like the symbiote whispering bad things into the once-friendly neighbourhood superhero’s brain, we too are consumed by thoughts of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. If the excellence of the last two games in the series isn’t enough to excite you, it’s another PS5 exclusive from Insomniac, following the rather impressive Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart. Both Peter Parker and Miles Morales are playable, and web-heads can transition slickly between the pair. Wrapped up in a quest to save the life of Peter’s friend Harry Osborn, the older Spidey gets his hands (and body) on the Venom symbiote, giving him new, tentacular powers. With Curt Connors transformed into The Lizard and holding the key to a cure for Harry, the duo…

For anyone who’s wondered for months how this brick-powered kart racer would play, the answer is a little disappointing: it’s a by-the-numbers, open world racing game. Automatic vehicle switching between car, boat, and off-road forms is neat, and races, challenges, and collectibles are wrapped up in a child-friendly but appealing Lego world. However, beneath the jokes about ‘Big Buttes’ lie deceptively great arcade racing events, all bolstered by a rather exceptional creative twist. Recent Lego games have rewarded destruction without letting you do any meaningful building, but that’s not the case here: you can build your own vehicles from the wheels up, brick by virtual brick. You can even take them online, though they need to be verified first, which is a welcome touch. The next thing the game does…

Your best defence in this house of horrors is a trusty notepad and pen. Set in an ornate mansion chock-full of deadly escape-room-style puzzles, this title borrows heavily from old-school adventure games, even having a distinct, early 3D look. Pointy character models, wobbly textures, a shrouded draw distance – it takes us right the way back to the original PlayStation. But the year is not 1999 and, while The Tartarus Key introduces some welcome tweaks to the formula, it also faithfully reproduces well-known missteps. Protagonist Alex wakes up alone in this mansion with no idea how she got there. Though you could cut the atmosphere with a butter knife, there are no ghoulies to fight and no combat mechanics. Instead, the greatest threat to the mansion’s other inhabitants could very…

With a title like that, you can’t accuse this game of false advertising. It’s like a cross between chess and a fight by the bins round the back of a pub. Each turn-based fight takes place in a tiny grid-based arena; procedural generation combines with a card-based ability system to add a big dollop of unpredictability. And it’s something of a double-bladed dollop, really. It’s an unforgiving experience; on anything above the standard difficulty, it’s a relentlessly brutal one. There’s a story mode and, as with fellow deckbuilding roguelike Slay The Spire, your inventory and health carries throughout each run. It only takes a few mistakes early on to make later levels demonic challenges where taking damage just once or twice means failure. KICK AND COLLECT Theoretically, you can finish…

This folktale has a gorgeous-looking fantasy setting with cute wickle gnomes, a friendly stone giant, a chance to ride a hedgehog… and also child sacrifice, literal rivers of gore, and gigantic horrors determined to tear you apart. Although drawing upon Nordic fables, this is absolutely not suitable for children. You’ll stumble into some disturbing imagery before the credits start to roll. We don’t mind saying that one scene even took us aback. This is not a game that seeks to shock for the sake of it; rather, Bramble encompasses both the wonder and the horror that is to be found in fables across the world. Indeed, the fantastical atmosphere has been perfected here. There is narration rather than dialogue, visually it is by turns dreamy and horrific, and the soundtrack…

From updates to favourites – the games we just can’t quit In the previously released Morbius DLC, the vampire storyline came to a pretty strong end narratively. That is bad news for the final DLC hero, Storm, who can’t kick off a new storyline. That makes this entry the worst in the series by far, as it is almost completely lacking in stakes – Ororo has lost track of a mutant she meant to introduce to the X-Men, and needs your help in the search. It’s really nothing much in terms of story, but you do at least get Storm, who is the only new hero with an attribute that feels truly unique: most cards have an advantage that only unlocks if you leave them unplayed for a round. You…

When this game was first released, it had to contend with the two words that developers fear perhaps more than any others: mixed reviews. Some critics loved it, some were left unimpressed, and some hated it with a passion that translated into truly brutal criticism. Ready At Dawn has had the last laugh; its work has stood the test of time. One thing everybody agreed on at the time was that the graphics were impressive. Phenomenal, really; despite the fact that The Order: 1886 is approaching its tenth birthday, it’s no exaggeration to say that it looks better than some PS5 games today. The action takes place across locales such as the streets of an alternate Victorian London, a luxury airship, and a bloodied hospital. Each is rendered with intricate…

FORMAT PS1 (RERELEASED FOR PS4) / PUB SQUARE ENIX / DEV SQUARE ENIX / RELEASED 2000 (2017) The excitement in the kingdom of Alexandria is palpable when the theatre ship MS Prima Vista arrives – old shopkeepers close up early for the day, and excited children run towards the stage. The theatre company Tantalus is famous for putting on a show. Final Fantasy has a thing for in-game performances, whether it’s the opera in FFVI, the Gold Saucer’s immersive theatre in FFVII, or the school festival in FFVIII, but none of these moments set the tone of the game and introduce its characters as well as the play in Final Fantasy IX. Tantalus is performing a Romeoand-Juliet-style piece, and while it’s going on, protagonist Zidane is supposed to kidnap Alexandria’s…

Getting you closer to PlayStation’s most exciting stories, people, and culture Here comes Idris Elba, one of the few men in Hollywood more desirable than Keanu, to headline a great big expansion. You know the story, samurai. In the long years after Cyberpunk 2077 was first revealed – a period so long we wondered if the title might double as a release date – expectations for the next game from Witcher developer CD Projekt Red grew ever higher. Then, in 2020, the game finally rocked up in the kind of state you’d expect of Johnny Silverhand, the ill-tempered ghost of a rockstar implanted in your skull. Was it as good-looking as Keanu? In its more cogent moments, sure, especially after the proliferation of plastic penises was patched out. But the…

Maybe kicking off with Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown did it, but not even a cameo from Nicolas Cage was enough to re-energise Summer Game Fest after that first premiere. Despite a lot of hooting and hollering, the two-hour show – held at LA’s YouTube Theater – felt curiously flat, and of the 40-plus games featured, only a few came as a surprise. While prior shows stood in E3’s long-established shadow, in 2023 SGF stepped (reluctantly, we’re assured) across the event’s grave. It took until March and Ubisoft’s exit for the ESA to publicly withdraw E3, and since then all eyes have been on Geoff Keighley and co. Yes, comparisons are inevitable. No, not all of them are fair. But the ESA had been slow to acclimatise to an…

“YOU HAVE TO RESPECT THE STUFF THAT WAS THERE BEFORE AND BUILD ON IT.” As your feet pound your foe’s chest, sending ribbons of blood and splintered rib-bone flying, Mortal Kombat 1 should feel at once both wonderfully familiar and utterly fresh, even if you’re a seasoned brawler. Simultaneously respecting the fighting franchise’s storied roots while embracing change, NetherRealm Studios’ new-look fighter is smooth, slick, and doesn’t pull its punches. Rebooting any series is a gamble, but it takes a particularly steely resolve to reimagine a series as loved and respected as 30-year-old Mortal Kombat. According to art development director Thiago Gomes it’s that respect that sits at the heart of NetherRealm’s decision to overhaul it. “You have to do it carefully,” Gomes tells us at Play Days 2023, where…

Okay, we’ll admit that motion capturing digital characters is cool (and is almost a trademark of PlayStation first-party titles these days). But sometimes you just can’t beat a bona fide real human. Many modern games still use them effectively (one by Remedy Entertainment in particular jumps to mind… flip to p48 to find out what we mean), but back in the ’90s FMV was the thing. And The 7th Guest, tasking you with interacting with ghostly apparitions while being ethereal yourself, is a cult classic for a reason. Which raises the question: what do you do if you’re remaking it? For Vertigo Games, keeping the FMV spirit alive was vital. “I still remember the kick I got out of seeing ‘real people’ in a game,” shares game director Paul van…

Have you ever heard a deer bark? It’s a primordial rasp, one that echoes through the dark as a desperate warning – danger draws near. Saga Anderson (played by actress Melanie Liburd), a storied FBI agent with a reputation for cracking complex cases, is on the hunt in Bright Falls. Once a sleepy town shrouded by American Pacific Northwest greenery and the darkness lurking therein, over the past decade or so the community’s been ripped apart by a string of brutal murders. Each killing possesses a troubling ritualistic element that has piqued the interest of the bureau. Little do the investigators realise things are about to get a whole lot nastier and weirder. It is happening again. Saga’s strongest leads are scattered pages of a manuscript for a horror novel…

Rare is the fighting game with such a show-stealing story mode. More than a cutscene framework for the continuing story of legendary fighters going up against shadowy forces and classic, crunchy combat, World Tour mode is a fully-featured action RPG with random encounters, treasure to find, and a tale helmed by your custom character (who can be as goofy as you like). Even so, it’s the low point in this fantastic followup in which the fighting fundamentals remain king. Which isn’t to say World Tour is bad. It’s just not all that good. It’s an RPG in which the Street Fighter 6 framework is the base of the battles. There’s an almost Yakuza-like vibe to exploring the city and uppercutting masked gang members into fights (or even sparring with shopkeepers),…

Revelling in Jean-Luc Picard’s exasperation at Q’s nonsense, grinning as classically trained actors tumble around obviously static sets, and knowing a red shirt is an omen of death, I whiled away many weekends watching Star Trek reruns with my dear old dad when I was just a wee space cadet. I’ve spent just as much time weighing up dialogue options, and asking myself ‘Will they remember that in a good way… or a bad way?’ Dramatic Labs is no stranger to this story; it’s a new studio founded by former higher-ups from Telltale Games. Its first project, pairing Star Trek space opera with choice-driven narrative mechanics, sounds like a holodeck dream – but is Resurgence nothing more than a rude awakening? ENGAGE! You swap between two playable protagonists: straight-laced commanding…

French WW1 soldier Henri Clement is having a rough time of it. As if being driven out the trenches by mustard gas, seeing his friends blown to bits, and getting pinned down in a dank bunker wasn’t enough, he’s only gone and developed amnesia (naturally, for this horror anthology series). That means he’s got no idea why his comrades have been torn to shreds, the fleeing survivors blew up the only exit, or why there’s a large monster slithering through the dark hallways. And The Bunker really is dark. Get too spooked to play this game at night (when it’s best), and you’ll see your whimpering face reflected back at you in the pitch-black areas behind cautiously pushed-open doors. Things go bump (or make other noises) in the dark as…

There are two types of people in this world, suggests Piccolo Studio’s post-apocalyptic adventure: those who feel sad about the impact humanity has had on the environment, 1 and those who get angry if you point that out. You play a third type in the form of Earth spirit Gaia, who sets out across a bleak world that looks like a cross between familiar game wastelands and your local tip, retrieving the spirits of dead animals so her ethereal mother can revive them aboard a kind of celestial Ark. Cheerful stuff, then. But the developer of Arise: A Simple Story doesn’t have much to say about any of this. After Us delivers some arresting sights – one area is covered in a sea of litter; in another…

Gollum isn’t an obvious choice for a videogame lead character. Partly this is because he doesn’t feature in Tolkien’s books as heavily as several other characters, and partly because, well, he looks like a cross between Elon Musk and a haddock. Yet here we are and, much like the twisted creature himself, the game is unpleasant and constantly fighting with itself. This is not, as we shall soon explain, a good game. The tragedy of this truth is that Gollum himself is, in fact, wonderful. Everything about him here – the design, the animation, the writing, the acting – comes together to provide a fantastic interpretation of this pathetic, intriguing, untrustworthy, and unforgettable creature. While the Gollum of the Peter Jackson movies is a clear influence, this version is by…

There’s been a trend on Twitter recently where people have been posting picture couplets with the words ‘name a bigger downgrade’, and you’d be forgiven for posting a picture of this game next to its predecessor. Something’s gone wrong during this formerly excellent series’ transition to PS5, and it’s quite a shock to compare like for like. Objectively, this is still a commendably authentic recreation of the historic Isle Of Man TT event in which outwardly normal people straddle two-wheeled rockets and hurtle down country lanes at over 100 miles per hour, teasing death and seeking glory. It made for a surprisingly awesome videogame first time around but, with a new developer this year, this sequel misfires badly. You’ll often feel like you’re racing whatever green-fingered fae plants the trackside…

After the sombre tone of its predecessor, Persona 4 marked a shift in direction for the socially focussed RPG series. Yes, bizarre murders are happening in the sleepy town of Inaba, but look at how cheerful the bright yellow colour scheme is! After hearing rumours that switched-off TVs will reveal your soulmate at midnight on a rainy day, the player-named protagonist takes a peek at the Midnight Channel. Tumbling down the rabbit hole, he’s drawn into the grisly mystery of the aforementioned murders. Did we mention all the victims were found dangling from telecom poles? Not only does investigating that central mystery in the company of an iconic Scooby Gang remain compelling, but there’s still much praise to heap on the art direction. “In my mind it looks significantly different…