Tag: Linux games

Everything We Saw At Today’s Xbox Developer Direct

Screenshot: Tango Gameworks / Kotaku

Today Microsoft held its Developer Direct presentation, focusing on a number of new games coming to Xbox, PC, and Game Pass. We got a fresh look at some anticipated titles, as well as a neat little rhythmic surprise from the developers of The Evil Within. But enough chatter, let’s get into what Microsoft showed off today.

Minecraft Legends

We first learned of Minecraft Legends last year. A spin-off of the ultra-popular sandbox survival game, Legends is, perhaps unexpectedly, a multiplayer action-strategy game. Legends will have both a narrative co-op mode, as well as a PvP mode with procedurally generated environments, which is much of what we saw today. Check it out here:

Microsoft

Forza Motorsport

The folks over at Turn 10 showed off some wildly pretty footage of the upcoming Forza Motorsport, which is expected to arrive this year. This presentation focused on the finer details of Motorsport’s visual flair, including highly detailed dirt, damage, and “battle scars” that’ll build up on your digital cars, as well as extra detail added to the game’s dynamic time of day and trackside vegetation. Cars are also expected to get more realistic physical behaviors, with improvements to the suspension and exhaust.

Read More: This Racing Game Promises The Best Dirty Video Game Cars You’ve Ever Seen

Forza Motorsport – Developer Game Overview

Hi-Fi Rush

Surely we’ve all thought “why can’t we take down corporate overlords in a brightly colored action game with rhythmic action cues? Oh, and made by the folks who did The Evil Within.” Well think no more: Hi-Fi Rush was today’s biggest surprise, putting players in the role of an aspiring rock star with a rhythmic robot arm who kicks butt on the beat with a flying V guitar…which makes sense as that’s about all a flying V is good for. It looks like good fun, and by the way, it’s coming out today! On Game Pass, even.

Read More: Horror Devs Surprise World With Bright Action Game, On Game Pass Tonight

Hi-Fi Rush – Launch Trailer

Redfall

Arkane, the studio that brought us Dishonored, Prey 2017, and Deathloop is currently working on Redfall, an open-world, sandbox FPS with four-player co-op. With some friends, you’ll wield appropriately gothic firearms to take down oodles of blood-sucking vampires. Arkane describes the setting as its largest world yet. While it does look very much like Left 4 Dead with vampires, today’s gameplay dive showed off Arkane’s immersive sim strengths, meaning there are a variety of ways to take on foes and objectives, with some uncertain outcomes. Redfall is expected on May 2 of this year.

Microsoft / Bethesda

The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom

ESO continues on with a new expansion: Necrom. Expect a brand new class, the Arcanist, and some terrestrial and extraplanar adventures as there’s a new peninsula to explore in the mushroom kingdom of Morrowind. You’ll also get to go for a jog in Apocrypha, one of the Elder Scrolls’ lovely hellish realms. Coming on June 5 and June 20 for PC and consoles, respectively.

Microsoft / Bethesda

While last year was a little lacking in terms of exclusives for Xbox and Game Pass, with High On Life being perhaps the most notable, 2023 is certainly looking a bit more action packed. Bethesda’s much-hyped, much-delayed Starfield is also supposed out, in June no less. Think they’re gonna stick it this time?

Claire Jackson

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January 25, 2023
30 Indie Games You Should Know About Releasing In 2023

PlayStation

Thirsty Suitors is a cross between Scott Pilgrim’s battles with evil exes, stylish arcade skateboarding, and cooking segments all portrayed through a South Asian cultural lens. Outerloop Games’ RPG stars Jala as she returns to an old town with old flames, and frames their reconciliation through turn-based battles where the simple act of talking to each other is pumped up to ridiculous levels. There’s even a stage in which Jala enters a dream world where her exes appear as powerful, distorted versions of their own self-concept. Think Persona 5 but with fewer criminals. Jala explores her old town on a skateboard (more Jet Set Radio than Tony Hawk), and when she’s home with her family, she cooks with her mother in over-the-top, campy fashion. Thirsty Suitors portrays all of its storylines in this way, but there’s a grounded humanity at its core that will be exciting to see when the game launches on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch.

Kenneth Shepard

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January 7, 2023
Kickstarter Cancelled In The Most Brutally Honest Way Possible

Image: Mystery Flesh Pit National Park

Mystery Flesh Pit National Park is a fictional project by Trevor Roberts, who having started on Reddit has for the past few years has been posting stories and artwork to his website, fleshing (sorry) out the tale of a huge creature that is discovered underground in Texas and…turned into a tourist attraction.

It’s a very cool pitch, like some kind of Lovecraftian Jurassic Park, full of absurdity but also abject horror, and it has slowly been picking up enough fans that it has been covered on sites like USA Today. Given the success of the project, and the fact that Roberts has built more of a detailed diorama of a world than a linear story, a video game adaptation must have seemed to a lot of people like a really good idea.

So last week Roberts announced that, courtesy of Village Fox Media, a Mystery Flesh Pit video game would be going into development, and would be seeking its funding on Kickstarter. Billed as a “survival horror video game for PC”, it would centre around the efforts of a crew tasked with helping the Park recover from a disaster—remember, it’s inside a giant beast—that kills 750 people.

A week later the Kickstarter—which was very light on demonstrations or detailed information on development—has been binned, with Roberts saying the decision was made after a combination of “fan feedback, a fumbled marketing push, internal disputes, and some deep introspection”. Specifically, it seems the process of handing off work on the game to other people…did not go well, with Roberts since writing (emphasis mine):

To those who were looking forward to a videogame, I apologize. Most people do not fully appreciate what a substantial undertaking it is to produce even a modest videogame. I have personally and carefully created each and every piece of the Mystery Flesh Pit project, but something as large as a videogame is wholly beyond my scope as an individual artist. When I am not the one directly responsible for overseeing its creation, I cannot ensure its quality. After this experience I can firmly state that there will be no endorsed videogame adaptions of the Mystery Flesh Pit as long as I am alive.

I sincerely hope that by cancelling this overly-ambitious Kickstarter campaign I have avoided what could have been a rushed and inferior gaming experience at best, and an unmitigated disaster at worst. It is also my hope that my decision to endorse this particular Kickstarter does not harm or hinder the superior work of other credible, talented creators that are and have been working hard behind-the-scenes to bring you a Mystery Flesh Pit Tabletop Gaming Experience late in 2023.

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“I have no hard feelings towards the developers”, Roberts tells me. “It was a mutual decision in the end to cancel it. I think they were a little bit too ambitious, and I had a moment of clarity where I saw the disaster this was going to become for all involved. I think I did the right thing. And, for the record, I have always been and continue to be wholly supportive of fan games. My statement about there not being a Mystery Flesh Pit videogame ever was, admittedly, a little overzealous. Fan games are awesome. I just think there are already too many games/movies/series that are poorly planned cash grabs by burnt-out creators, and I’m not about that.”

It’s refreshing to see Roberts see the writing on the wall and pull the plug like this now, and not months/years down the line—having already taken the money—like so many other doomed campaigns have done on the platform.

The tabletop adaptation, which as Roberts says is still coming, should be out early next year.

Luke Plunkett

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November 28, 2022
The Year Is Nearly Over, But You Still Have 10 Game Releases To Look Forward To

Fantasy medieval game Blacktail, Krakow-based studio The Parasight’s debut, lets you play as folktale witch Baba Yaga in her bow-and-arrow-carrying youth. You command her fate, if she’s a good witch or a bad witch, depending on how you navigate the magical, dangerous forest she roams.

“When living memories of her past return as foul, walking spirits,” Blacktail’s website says. “Yaga is faced with no other option than to hunt them down in hopes of unraveling her own mystery.”

I’m excited by Blacktail’s premise—I’m a former little kid with vivid imagined memories of Baba Yaga’s gnarled hands and battered cabin in the woods. Though, I am a little annoyed that Yaga’s voice actress sounds British despite the character growing up isolated from everyone except, like, early Belarusians. I’m hoping the game’s story is so mythic and compelling that I’m distracted by the Anglo-Saxon intrusion.

Release date: December 15

Compatible with: PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5

What 2022 game release are you most looking forward to? Or are you keeping your sights set squarely on next year?

Ashley Bardhan

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November 11, 2022
One Piece Game’s New Trailer Is Gonna Have Me Crying Over A Boat (Again)

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Eric Schulkin

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October 22, 2022
After 20 Years Of Development, Dwarf Fortress Is Getting A Proper Tutorial

Image: Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress, a game that has been around forever and will be around forever, has never been the most welcoming experience for the average, curious player. Something its developers have finally decided to work on for the game’s upcoming Steam release.

Writing on the game’s store page, co-creator Zach Adams says:

Dwarf Fortress has the well-earned title of being one of the most torturous games to learn. There is a lot going on, even after we changed all the ridiculous keyboard commands and replaced the Matrix-like interface with some understandable, and awesome, pixel art. It still needs something. Something to ease the need to head straight to a wiki just to understand what’s going on. The answer is the tutorial of course.

Zach shared some screenshots of the new tutorial in action, showing stuff like initial greetings and guides to basics like woodcutting and stockpiling your resources:

Image: Dwarf Fortress

Image: Dwarf Fortress

Image: Dwarf Fortress

“To make the tutorial all it can be, we found the ultimate play tester: my wife Annie”, Zach says. “There are a lot of base-building games out there now, enough to make Dwarf Fortress easier to get into. She doesn’t play any of them. The closest she gets to DF is Overcooked 2. After one failed attempt with the original, the latest version of the tutorial allowed her to get good enough at the game to tunnel under a bog and drown her fortress.”

The Adams brothers first started working on Dwarf Fortress in 2002, so why only get around to this now? The upcoming re-release of the game on Steam seems as good an excuse as any, of course, since dropping the game on Valve’s shopfront—which will also bring stuff like much-improved visuals—will be exposing the game to a potentially huge audience of new and curious players.

“Our aim is to make this level of play achievable by anyone”, Zach writes. “We want the world to be able to lose this game and have fun doing it.”

The Steam version of Dwarf Fortress doesn’t yet have an official release date, though fans digging through SteamDB think it’ll be coming sometime in early 2023.

Luke Plunkett

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October 13, 2022