Rock Paper Shotgun – PC Game Reviews, Previews, Subjectivity

There's been an incident of the explosive sort. You're trapped, alone - save for some mysterious voices broadcasting to you - in a strange and ruined near-future complex at Stonehenge. Sounds like the start for a first-person puzzle adventure to me, and The Bradwell Conspiracy seems happy to play the role.

Announced today, The Bradwell Conspiracy is to be the first game from new outfit A Brave Plan, published by Bossa Studios. They're calling it a "narrative-driven first person experience" which perhaps downplays the puzzle bits, but that scene above sure looks like a conundrum to me. There's no release date yet, but Bossa say it's "Coming soon". Below, a moody teaser trailer.

What's short, sweet, dumb as a sack of Imperial servo-hammers and free for the next 48 hours? Relic's Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, that's what. For the next two days you can grab this neat little third-person shoot n' slasher completely free via Humble, and keep it forever, although they do ask that you sign up for their newsletter in exchange for the goods.

Despite Alec's faintly damning praise, Space Marine is probably the best non-strategic Warhammer 40,000 game around. When all you've got is a huge stompy suit of power armour, a sword that is also a chainsaw and a bloody great gun, every problem starts to look like a Space Ork. Either that, or there's just thousands of the green gits to smack. Go on, then.

What if Left 4 Dead but rats? See for yourself this weekend, as Warhammer: Vermintide 2 tonight launches a free weekend trial of the full game. Round up three pals (or make awkward small talk with AI-controlled botmates) and go stab, smash, bash, and burn your way through hordes of heathens and ratmen in a slice of the Warhammer Fantasy world. This trial comes shortly after the launch of its first DLC pack, which added new maps, and accompanies a sale making the game half-price for a few days too.

I am officially declaring this Metroidvania Month. As much as The Messenger is openly inspired by Tecmo's merciless Ninja Gaiden games, a little ninja bird tells me that it, too, blossoms into a non-linear platform adventure, joining a long list of similar launches this August.

Out now, The Messenger is the debut game from new studio Sabotage. Players bounce and stab their way through a linear 8-bit world of demons and big boss monsters, eventually gaining the ability to travel into the 16-bit era and explore. Below, a trailer and a peek at some of Ninja Gaiden's original developers giving it a try.

Boss battle bonanza Furi has added new tools and difficulty options that will help players at both ends of the skill scale: those who want a hand getting past certain sections; and those those who want to play certain parts so damn much to polish their speedruns.

"I want to be able to beat Furi so effectively that it stops fighting back but, like the freaky foes it contains, outwitting it will only cause it to transform into something even more devious," our former Adam (RPS in peace) said in his Furi review and if you find that tantalising yet slightly offputting, mate get on this. It's going cheap on sale right now too.

World War 2 drive-o-fly-a-FPS Battlefield V will launch one month later than previously planned, developers Dice announced today, delayed from October 19th to November 20th. Dice say they want more time to tweak it and make sure it's proper good, see. The open beta test planned to start September 6th is still going ahead on schedule, but the wait between that and the full game launching will be a whole lot longer.

Splendid sopping survival sim Subnautica is off to an icy ocean in a standalone expansion named Below Zero, developers Unknown Worlds Entertainment announced today. This was once talked about as DLC but naw it'll now be its own separate thing, entering early access "in the coming months". UWE are keeping relatively quiet for now, showing a few concepts for new alien oceanlife while muttering "We're still in early stages and nothing is set in ice". That said, folks who don't mind spoilers or potential disappointment can follow their public dev board to see all the wonders and horrors that may make it in. I've had a peek and ooooh!

Zombies, like ants, get everywhere. Unlike ants, they're the subject of Far Cry 5: Dead Living Zombies, the shooter's third and final DLC. It came out two days ago but I bet YOU didn't know that, and I bet the promise of seven self-contained action movie scenes from various apocalyptic scenarios sounds alluring. Maybe. I might not bet much.

Ubisoft have also chucked in a New Game+ mode for the main game, which lets you start over with all the toys and perks you've unlocked - on a new punishing difficulty level, if you fancy it.

Hello fans of militant isolationism, we have another Sengoku period videogame for you. It's called Onimusha: Warlords and it's coming out in – wait. Onimusha: Warlords. That's the game you love! That's the 2001 samurai slice ‘em up that you used to tell all your school mates about every time they mentioned Resident Evil and then they'd all turn away from you and pretend not to hear what you were saying. And it's getting a remastered release early next year, say Capcom. I bet that makes you happy. And you know what? That's good. You be happy.

Despite following its development closely, reading Tom Sykes' cheerful review in November and picking it up as part of Twitch Prime's big summer giveaway, it wasn't until last evening that I finally tried out the gorgeous little puzzle-brawler hybrid that is Battle Chef Brigade. It charmed the everloving heck out of me for hours on end. My belated thanks to the chefs at Trinket Studios.

Officially relaunched yesterday as Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe (a free update for all), it's now a meatier, tastier game than before. Now featuring local multiplayer, a new playable character (Necromancer-chef Ziggy, seen above) and a bundle of new play-modes, it's probably worth taking a sniff at now. Below, the spicy new trailer for the game.

It's patch day for bizarro esport giant Rocket League. Teased and foretold in aeons past, today's update (the serious-sounding version 1.50) completely overhauls levelling and progression and adds a clubs system so like-minded car-to-ball aficionados can drive under a shared banner. This update also paves the way for the game's first seasonal Rocket Pass, which rolls out next week.

While this update introduces no new car models or arenas, it's a good time to take a peek if you're late to the rocket party. The game is 40% discounted on Steam until Monday, September 3rd.

Free-to-play team shooter Dirty Bomb has been around for yonks now, so it feels weird to say that the game is 'out now', but after more than three years of open beta, the competitive FPS has finally reached version 1.0, although the changes in the launch version are surprisingly slight.

Set in a nuclear-ravaged future London, this class-based shooter puts players in the boots of 23 high-tech mercenaries. There's robo-tanks to escort, people to shoot in the face and no small amount of grind involved if you want to permanently unlock all your favourite characters. It's also good fun, playing like a blend of Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, with a little bit of developer Splash Damage's earlier Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Brink in there too.

It still amazes me how coherent roguelike platformer Spelunky was, despite its dozens of moving parts. Monsters, traps and players interact with each other in so many ways. Next year, Spelunky 2 is adding a bucketload of new elements and systems to its repertoire, as you can see in action in the new trailer below. There's physics-driven fluids, arrows you can use as footholds, mounts you can gracefully leap off Yoshi-style just above deadly pits and a gun that clones kitties. Oh, and online multiplayer - that seems important.

Survival sandbox Scum may boast astonishingly detailed health management systems (shown above) but under that veneer of hyper-complexity beats a familiar heart. Published by Devolver Digital and entering early access today, Scum resembles zombie survive 'em up DayZ, brief source of zeitgeist before battle royale shooters took over. Set in a massive open-air prison, up to 64 players per server try to feed, clothe and arm themselves while dodging rivals, undead hordes and the occasional security robot.

We don't hear much Nintendo news round these PC parts, and when we do it's usually bad. The latest nintenews is that their lawyers have shut down Pokémon Essentials, a set of tools which have been instrumental in many unofficial fan-made Pokémon games on PC, as well as the Wiki containing information on how to use them. A video games company aggressively going after after perceived copyright violation is not surprising, even if Pokémon Essentials has safely been available for over a decade, but it's still a mighty bold move.

Today brings a big new free update for A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia, adding new Allegiance and Decree systems (well, new to Battlebrits but borrowed from earlier Total War games). Developers Creative Assemble have conceded that they got a little carried away stripping back the Total War formula (the Warmula, as I imagine the official term is) for the first of the new Saga spin-off series, see, so they've gone back to pack in more gameguts. Speaking of guts, Total War's customary gore DLC is now available for Battlebrits too.

What a fool! While I was having a disappointing time battling royale with dogs nipping at my ankles in Fear The Wolves, I could've been chumming the waters to draw sharks to bite off my foes' toes in Last Tide. Formerly known as King Tide, the undersea battle royale FPS from the studio behind Depth entered early access on Monday and I'm still pleased by their commitment to sharks. Yeah, sure, you and 99 other divers swim around aquatic bases gathering loot and murdering each other and that's all familiar but also: SHARKS! Depth's divers vs. sharks deathmatch was a lark so ah, I wish I'd tried this instead.

"We want to make Destiny weird again", says Forsaken game director Steve Cotton in a new video dev diary. I want them to make Destiny 2 weird again too, though the trailer for the upcoming Forsaken expansion looks positively mundane. Space wizards leap through the air, four-armed aliens snarl at each other and blue skinned-folk with glowing yellow eyes mutter about the nature of light and dark. Standard Destiny stuff.

The Forsaken expansion is out on September 4th, but patch 2.0 actually landed yesterday. There's an extensive list of balance tweaks, but the biggest change makes the weapon system less restrictive and lets you have, say, a shotgun and a sniper rifle on the go at the same time.

Winning a few rounds in Overwatch will net you a fancy skin for D.Va and her mech, turning them into ambulant adverts for the soda she's seen endorsing in her animated short and the new map. Seeing as the highest art of video game worldbuilding is creating fictional fizzy pop, it's hard to imagine a better skin. Crack open a cold one!

Announced during an otherwise dull financial results conference streamed on Twitch, CD Projekt Red announced a minor surprise today. Their long-awaited Gwent singleplayer campaign has grown into a separate and self-contained game all of its own. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is its new, Gwent-free name, and while obviously related to the free-to-play card game, the company are calling it a lengthy RPG in its own right. As such, it will be sold as a standalone retail game.

Ah, the undead. Nobody likes them, really. Not even the vampires - far too pretentious. Those wanting a fresh opportunity to put the walking dead firmly back in their graves may be well served by Strange Brigade - Rebellion's 1930s pulp adventure-themed squad shooter, which is out now.

Designed for four player co-op (though playable solo), players control a globe-trotting band of magic-wielding, gun-toting adventurers who specialise in looting forgotten tombs and putting grumpy old pharaohs back to bed.  Below, a plummily narrated launch trailer. Tally ho, and all that!

The bad rats are back again - no, not those ones. Warhammer: Vermintide 2 was a lot of grimdark, co-op hack n' slash fun, but some folks have already picked every last scrap of diseased meat from its bones already. Today, it got its first bit of paid DLC - Shadows Over Bögenhafen - adding another two missions to the mix, plus a massive patch for all. In this DLC, everyone's favourite plague god Nurgle is up to no good (again), so it's time to call our band of continually bickering heroes to come clean up, and maybe bop some rats while they're at it.

Blink-and-you're-dead party platformer Samurai Gunn is getting a sequel, and this time there's a story mode to stab your way through either solo or with a friend. Announced during today's Nintendo indie showcase (and confirmed to be bound for PC), Samurai Gunn 2 is headed our way early next year. I've only had a few chances to play the original with a full compliment of friends, so I'm entirely on board with more options for solo play or smaller groups. Check out the debut trailer below.

Watching Untitled Goose Game's eponymous git torment villagers in a new trailer brings joy to my heart. The slapstick sandbox stealth game will send us to steal, smash, and generally antagonise, following our goosey whims, and it's now expected in "early 2019". Developers House House (of Push Me Pull You fame) explain "It's a lovely morning in the village and you are a horrible goose," and you certainly are. Watch this honking bastardy below.