The creators of survival game The Wild Eight are working on a new project called the Dead Dozen, a multiplayer horror game in which a team of soldiers has to fight off player-controlled ghouls. The humans will loot buildings for weapons, armour, ammo and boosters before finding and moving objects around to create barricades. We don’t yet have the full details, but we do know that the first alpha version of the game will launch on January 8, containing the “core game loop” and one multiplayer map

The idea of a VR horror game terrifies me—I have enough trouble making it through a horror game in a well-lit room with my own music blaring. But as an example of the genre, Left-Hand Path seems a decent one, and has been getting good user reviews on Steam. It blends VR horror with RPG elements inspired by the Dark Souls series into a 15-hour story in which you cast spells by drawing runes in the air with your hands. It’s pretty rare to get a fully fleshed-out VR game of this length. The variety

Dreams of The Witcher 4 will probably never become reality, judging by the words of CD Projekt chief executive Adam Kiciński. However, the company will “probably” make another game in the Witcher universe at some point to keep fans and investors happy. It sounds like there’s nothing concrete in place but if it’s not a definitive sequel we can probably expect some kind of spin-off with a new cast of characters. Kiciński said it will be much bigger in scope than The Witcher 3, andthat he hopes it

The first Witcher was a great game, but I returned to it recently and it’s showing its age. If you want to learn more about Geralt’s origins but can’t take the rough edges then you’re in luck, because you can now play through its prologue in The Witcher 3’s engine thanks to a fan-made mod. Witcher 1 Prologue Remastered does exactly what it says on the tin, recreating the opening hour of Geralt’s first outing with all the visual and mechanical excellence we’ve come to expect from CD Projekt Red.

The number of games released on Steam this year has topped 6,000, according to analyst Daniel Ahmad, of Niko Partners. That’s the most ever on the platform—around 1,500 more than last year and almost as many as the total number of games released between 2005 and 2015. It’s the replacement for Steam Greenlight that lets developers publish on Steam without going through an approval process—all they have to do is pay $100. A quick update to the number of games released on Steam chart. Year isn’t ov

Railway Empire is a tycoon sim about building up a rail network in the mid-19th century Unites States. You plonk down stations, micromanage routes, choose which staff to hire and fire, and upgrade your trains with on-board toilets and padded seats. Publisher Kalypso (of the more recent Tropico games) has announced that it’s due to arrive on January 26. The video below gives you a good, brief overview of what the early stages of the game look like. Early purchasers get access to the closed beta,

I don’t have that kind of patience, but do I have something Hinckley didn’t: the Knockout Framework mod for Fallout 4, which lets you render NPCs unconscious by punching them. A companion mod by the same author makes a number of melee weapons non-lethal as well, and adds craftable non-lethal ammo for a few guns. Plus, the mod lets you pick up knocked-out enemies and carry them elsewhere in an enormous sack on your back. My plan: to play Fallout 4 non-lethally with the Knockout Framework mod, and

At the moment Star Citizen’s interplanetary travel is a binary system: every ‘short’ journey looks and feels the same, and over a particular threshold those effects change to mimic a ‘long’ journey. You’ll carry on accelerating to a top speed, cruise, and then your speed ramps down as you approach your target. And it’s not just mathematics in the background: that’s all accompanied by some impressive visual effects that add some Hollywood pizzazz. Then when you exit this ultra-fast travel state y

Crytek are looking to capitalise on the battle royale explosion by adding the mode to their futuristic free-to-play shooter Warface. Expect a large desert map and a ever-shrinking play zone with random loot—basically, it’s the formula that PUBG proved grabs players and doesn’t let them go. I haven’t got particularly high hopes for this one: Warface, as Chris explained when the game came out in 2014, is thoroughly mediocre. Up to now its game modes have been a mixture of Call of Duty-style PvP ma

A new tool from Amazon allows developers to add voice acting to their game in minutes using text-to-speech. Yes, you don’t want to have automated voice acting for main characters but for the odd cyber soldier grunt it could work. The company stresses that the tool is not “designed to replace voice talent; it just makes your use of voice talent more efficient”. It’s by no means the first automated voice acting tool on the market, but a big player like Amazon coming into this space can only be a g

The developers of The Darwin Project, the upcoming battle royale game, want to make combat as frequent as possible. Temperature is an issue in the North Canadian Rockies: go too long in the cold and you’ll freeze to death. Footsteps will leave a trail in the snow, so you’ll know which direction another player is heading. When a player crafts an item they’ll leave ‘clues’ behind, which pop up on-screen when you’re in range. Head to the game’s website to sign up for an alpha key—this weekend is th

It’s been a while since I’ve played The Sims, the celebrated life simulation series about—in large part—people urinating uncontrollably on the floor. What are you playing this weekend? Fortnite Battle Royale? Some game that doesn’t even have a battle royale mode? Happy weekend!

Ahead of that, developer NetherRealm Studios has revealed the fighters arriving in the game’s third DLC pack, and they include The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Joining the Turtles in the DLC pack are The Atom and Enchantress, bringing the total number of DLC fighters up to nine in addition to the 28 characters in the base game. The new fighters won’t be available immediately on launch of the PC version. An Early Access version of The Atom will be first to join the fray on December 12, with Ench

Today I live that fantasy, and rank all the Rocket League DLC cars, after a strenuous review process of driving them around in free play for up to several minutes. It therefore shouldn’t be taken seriously in any way by anyone who wants to get good at Rocket League. I think it’s the best one because it’s extremely silly, and Rocket League is at its best when it’s silly. ScarabThe 2001: A Space Odyssey of Rocket League cars, you can just smell the implied sci-fi world building all over it. It’s t

This week: what’s your favourite game world or setting? Jody Macgregor: the City in the Thief trilogyI like that the setting of the original Thief games was only ever called “the City”. Philippa Warr: ProteusThe island changes every time, but the feel of the world is constantly wonderful. The later Fallout games were a great spiritual successor, followed by an official sequel with Wasteland 2 several years ago. Samuel Roberts: Liberty City in GTA 4Clearly, GTA 5’s Los Santos is the king of open

DLC comes standard with most major videogame releases these days, but one game that won’t have it (unless plans change) is Dontnod’s early 20th-century supernatural RPG Vampyr. We would prefer, if the reception of the game justifies it, to think about a sequel,” Lagarrigue said. Smaller budgets for unique experiences also allows games to be successful at much lower volumes than expensive games like, say, Dead Space 2. Lagarrigue said Vampyr will be profitable at 500,000 copies sold, and “will be

I’ve been sinking quite a bit of time into Destiny 2, as you do, and really enjoying it overall. Chung and Steve Dolan said in the latest “This Week At Bungie” update that they want better communications options in the game too. “Getting clan chat into the game is one of our highest priorities, and we hope we can get it into a release as soon as possible,” Chung said. Dolan added that Bungie is looking at Tower and zone chat options as well, “but we have to prioritize it against all other asks.”

You can apply up to three Star Cards per class, character, or vehicle type, but only one at first. Loot boxesThe primary way to get Star Cards is with loot boxes which give you randomized rewards. The three loot box types guarantee that you’ll also get at least one, possibly two Star Cards that apply to a specific field of combat. There are two ways to purchase loot crates: Credits, which you earn through playing, or the premium currency, Crystals. CraftingThe loot boxes award you some number of

Though she may be celebrated by general Overwatch fandom, she presents some real problems for Overwatch esports. While still an impressive feat of skill, the direct and lasting impact of these kills has gone by the wayside thanks to Mercy’s non-Ultimate Resurrection. When South Korea was playing the USA during the Overwatch World Cup, they got off to a bit of a rocky start by dropping the first map. USA held them off for quite awhile on point A of Eichenwalde immediately after, but South Korea p

Let’s get it out of the way right off the top: Syberia 3 is not good. Syberia 1, though, that’s a different story altogether, a fact you can now confirm for yourself, for free, on GOG. The Syberia giveaway is to mark the release of Syberia 3: The Complete Journey on GOG, which is decidedly not free: It’s on sale for $35, down from a regular price of $55. I can’t in good conscience recommend dropping 40 bucks on what we called a “terrible adventure game,” but zero bucks on an adventure game class