Rock Paper Shotgun – PC Game Reviews, Previews, Subjectivity

The age of casually flitting between roles mid-match in Overwatch is over, as Blizzard just dropped a game-changing patch on their competitive team shooter's public test servers. Applying to Quick and Competitive match modes (as well as the esports league, which is a shakeup), players will now have to commit to a role - Tank, DPS or Support - before their match and queue for that role only. Once matched up in a balanced 2-2-2 team, you'll be able to swap characters, but only within your set role. It's a major restriction, which lead designer Jeff Kaplan tries to explain below.

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is just a few weeks away and I am practically buzzing with anticipation. Why? Because it's a spiritual successor to Wing Commander Privateer. Confirmed for an August 13th release today, it has big dumb greasy explosions, over-the-top dogfights and absolutely no care for realism, all wrapped around a space-trucker aesthetic that I can get behind. Grungy music aside, a pretty major departure from Double Damage's previous, two dimensional (and capital ship-scale) predecessor Rebel Galaxy. Below, a new trailer featuring a very sassy alien.

Sometimes a skeleton is just a skeleton. They're bloody everywhere in the Fallout games, so you could easily overlook just one more. Sometimes, however -- like in the Fallout 4 instance above -- it's a clever multi-layered nod to a friend. Earlier today, former Bethesda level designer Joel Burgess shared a few of his stories and favourite hidden creations via Twitter. It's some good insight, good advice for level designers, and highlights a few things you might have otherwise missed.

One of the last of the Id Software old guard is parting company with the studio soon. Tim Willits wasn't part of the original team of founders, but was there early enough to be credited as level designer on 1995's Ultimate Doom and have a credit in almost everything since. After working as a designer and creative director on the likes of Quake, Doom 3 and Rage, and acting as studio director through the release of Rage 2, he's left a mark on the FPS genre as we know it. After QuakeCon next week he'll say his goodbyes and announce his plans for the future.

Spooky-ooky puzzle-platformer Limbo, the game our former Kieron (RPS in pieces) dismissed as "Rick Dangerous for Goths", is the latest giveaway on the Epic Games Store. Playdead's tale of an oft-eviscerated kid searching for his sister was very much part of the early-tensies contemporary canon. It's a game one could hardly help but own through some bundle or freebie, though now I imagine a fair few newcomers will have missed it and be curious, especially after playing Playdead's follow-up, Inside. So hey, if you want it, it's currently free.

It has always amazed me that Grand Theft Auto Online (and its parent game, Grand Theft Auto 5) hasn't had a casino until now, what with it being all about a life of vice and high-stakes action. Next week on Tuesday the 23rd, Rockstar are fixing that, and opening the doors to the Diamond Casino & Resort. As with other GTA Online expansions, players will have to buy in with in-game money to access its new story missions and high-stakes tables. For everyone else, there'll be a bundle of new minigames to play, including poker, blackjack, roulette and betting on horse races. Below, the update trailer.

Good news: EA have announced Plants Vs. Zombies 3.

Bad news: it's free-to-play again, and microtransactions were a blight on PvZ 2.

Nullifying news: but this time it's just a mobile game so who even cares. Ian Arts, you are a monster.

After the microtransaction-muddled Plants vs. Zombies 2 and the I've-heard-they're-good-but-they're-not-what-I-want multiplayer Garden Warfare spin-offs, I had hoped EA might return to plain ol' PC PvZ. Sadly not, it seems.

Were Plato alive today, he'd declare a sixth platonic solid: de_dust2, representing the sixth element of devotion. This sacred configuration of geometry escaped its confinement in Counter-Strike and for eighteen years the map has lived in the hearts of men, re-emerging in dreams, in other games with level editors, and in mashed potato sculptures carved at the dinner table. But in the far future, the last remaining copy of de_dust2 is maintained inside Dustnet, a multiplayer sandbox building self-aware deathmatch museum... thing? It's out now, I've played a bit, I adore it, and I'm excited to figure out exactly what it is.

Oh, I'd missed doing this: combing through reams of arcane patch notes, jointly audibly reacting as you and your friends stumble across change after change that unravels your understanding of a game you're invested in. Valve are upending Dota Underlords this weekend. Neutrals will be nastier, spells will no longer target (most) summons, over half the heroes are due to be rejigged and - most interestingly of all - re-rolling the hero shop will never cough up a hero that was just on offer.

What does it all mean! Good things, mostly.

When Nvidia announced they were extending their Control / Wolfenstein: YoungBlood game bundle to all new RTX card purchases, I made an educated guess-timate that Remedy's upcoming spooky, telekinesis shooter Control would probably require a heftier dose of ray tracing magic than its Nazi-infested stablemate. Shock horror, I was right, as Remedy have finally revealed their minimum and recommended PC requirements for Control, and hoo boy, it ain't pretty.

If you like your dudes (or ladies) beefy, guns improbably en-chainsawed and your Ps versus other Ps, there's a Gears 5-flavoured slab of it landing this weekend, starting July 19th, 6pm BST. If you've got around ten gigabytes of bandwidth and an Xbox Game Pass subscription (or trial), then you can squirt it onto your PC right now in preparation for this weekend's multiplayer tech test. It's running until 6pm BST on July 22nd, and repeating on July 26th. It'll include Escalation, Arcade and King Of The Kill modes, as well as the tutorial Boot Camp. See the test trailer below.

I may pride myself on being the resident retro FPS guy, but this genre revival has been so wild that some neat-looking stuff even flies under my radar. Nightmare Reaper launched into early access yesterday, a roguelite FPS by Blazing Bit Games. I'd almost overlooked it thanks to its extra-chunky graphics and the inherent difficulties of combining random generation with fast-paced FPS combat. But word on the old-school grognard grapevine is that this one's pretty dang good, with some clever ideas and big plans for its time in early access. Have a peek at the debut trailer below.

With its sequel, Breakpoint, just a few months off, Ubisoft have one last gift for Ghost Recon Wildlands players that stuck around, launching free on July 18th. Mercenaries is an eight-player multiplayer mode and a radical departure from the regular game. Part survival challenge, part mini battle royale (with respawns), it reminds me of Survival mode from The Division, but on a much larger scale. Starting with just a knife, players race to clear NPC-held camps, activate transmitters and call in an evac helicopter with just one free seat. Below, a trailer explaining how it all works.

Co-op dungeon crawling board game Gloomhaven has made the hop to PC today, though it'll be a while yet until it's really comparable to its giant-boxed physical counterpart. Today's early access version lacks multiplayer or the campaign from the tabletop edition, and instead repackages the game into a solo roguelike experience. Developers Flaming Fowl say that all the missing bits are still coming, but won't all be there until next year. Still, I can't deny that this is a very pretty adaptation, and likely far easier to set up and play. Below, a rather dramatic debut trailer.

Tactical sim-shooter Squad is an intimidating beast. Boasting realism up there with the Arma series, but the added pressure of having 39 other players relying on you, it seems like it should have a tutorial. And now it does, coming just a few months after its December 15th early access debut. In 2015. Ah. Still, that intimidating first step hasn't stopped it from becoming a big hit among the mil-sim crowd. The game has sold over a million copies, and devs Offworld Industries just rolled out a major update featuring the Russian BMP-2, which you can see a video breakdown of below.

Seeing as DRM is a real barrier to the preservation of our cultural history, it's only fitting that the dead-language-translating archaeology 'em up Heaven's Vault is now sold on GOG too. The virtual vendors of vintage (and virgin) video games had originally rejected Heaven's Vault and declined to stock it, but this week chucked a uey and admitted they were wrong. If you want it DRM-free, get at it. GOG's curation is baffling but hey, here's another good game now on their store.

Our video team is whole again! After an exhaustive search, we've hired the excellent Astrid Johnson to join Matthew and Alice L in making videos for the RPS YouTube channel. Come join me in welcoming her to the team!

The world's finest stag & hen weekend banter simulator, Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, has revealed its supposed 'true' story with an outrageous retcon in a new trailer. No, we're supposed to believe, the game isn't about lads and lasses going too hard and getting carried away with pranks. Now it's some wank about a kid surviving a massacre then hosting megamurders so other people can discover who they really are by doing murders like a bad horror film about neo-Paleo dickheads. Awful.

I am now deeply concerned about the "original narrative experience" they're making.

City builders are neat, but they don't have nearly enough space whales. Fortunately, Before We Leave does. It's a freshly announced "nonviolent city building game" where you can eventually set up an interplanetary network of wooden villages, so long as you can deal with the celestial cetaceans that come along and try to eat your planets.

I got a sneak peek at GDC back in March, and the promise doesn't stop at the premise.