HZD actually has a fantastic story and a great setting. With some recent successful game movies, I can see this one actually being good. But does Sony have much of a track record here? Uncharted was bad.

Big shout out to Beyond All Reason. It’s an RTS game that’s free and open source that I’ve been playing with my friends for a few weeks now. Not even a fan of RTS games, but it’s a lot of fun to play co-op matches against AI.
https://www.beyondallreason.info

Rotwood is a good one. Co-op Roguelite beat-em-up from the Don’t Starve guys.

Lethal Company is just lots of fun, we’ve gotten too much time out of that dumb game. Maybe check out Content Warning if you like LC but want a change.

Outward is a fantastic old-school RPG for two people, has all the traits of a game from 2002

Palworld - haven’t hopped back into this one since its launch but have been meaning to. But this type of game is definitely not underrepresented on the market.

Escape Simulator is a nice stress-free co-op escape room game, lots of official content and also has Steam Workshop so there’s tons of great content.

PlateUp! if you’re not worried about getting into a fight over how awful your buddy is at making food

Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos is a Zelda-like RPG that’s a surprising amount of fun for how simple the game first looks.

Other bigname recs: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Baldur’s Gate 3, Sea of Thieves, Deep Rock Galactic, Stardew Valley

In ZZZ there’s not much you need to do in the overworld by looking up, it’s 100% to see more angles of the character

they pay devs millions

I mean I see this as a good thing. I have to keep a separate launcher around but… at least that dev is getting a great deal and will probably be able to support that game for a while (or start their next one)

Wise actually worked with OC Remix on the DKC album!

It’s fantastic to see an article like this in the Times. His work continues to be incredible, with more recent works like Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair and Gimmick 2.

Very cool, got a ‘75%’

Well Nintendo is playtesting a Minecraft-style MMO so hopefully they’ve put resources towards better online play.

Tell your friends and family that you love them but you won’t see them for a while

Could be fun, probably not something I’ll play for more than a few days though

Exhibit A: the hilariously horny official trailer for Jane Doe

Lady Geist is a lot higher than I expected. Though, I only used her once and she felt awful.

If Concord doesn’t see a F2P re-release, it will DEFINITELY be some highly-sought cultural relic in the future

Until there’s combat, I don’t think there’s going to be any significant risk/reward choices. Basically you choose the right gear loadout and head to an activity; you can try to optimize by planning a route, trying to keep your inventory from getting full, etc. There’s also low drop rate collectables, so it’s a risk to try to find it vs. spending your time on some guaranteed progression.

But at the end of the day, it’s a super lightweight step tracking game that gives me some cute in-game progress for when I have to run to the grocery store, or I can make sure I queue up something good before I run a 10k.

Not to diminish the dev, but I did see this promoted in a Steam sale, and with 200+ reviews, that’s not exactly chump change. Also it was released only a week ago. From watching the trailer, that’s more or less the numbers I expect that kind of game to be pulling.

Miitomo?

In the same vein, check out Klei’s new game Rotwood. I’m early access, but well worth the price, and will no doubt receive updates for years to come.

Your ship computer shows hints and places you haven’t fully explored. Alternatively you could say where you are and helpful internet people can give you a nudge.

I played a demo of Goblin Cleaners which put a fun twist on the formula

Dang really? I liked how they decided to not even attempt to call them grenades and just made it magic. I haven’t played all the classes yet, but they all did seem more barebones than BL2 and 3, likely because you multiclass.

Their trailer made it very clear they were forced to announce this too early, so ‘going well’ is everything we could expect at this point.

Have you played Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands? It’s pretty similar to 3, but I loved the hell out of the setting and meta jokes

Combat is a bit better after the first major patch, it added heavy attacks and some new weapon types. But if you didn’t enjoy the attack-dodge roll kind of gameplay, it doesn’t fundamentally change that.

But the updates did add a lot of little stuff all around the game

Here’s some of his pre-SDV work https://evergreenmultimedia.bandcamp.com/album/your-a-mega-star

No idea why it’s difficult to run android on PC in the first place. Windows 11 can do it, but I’m clinging to 10 until it’s gone.

The Beginner’s Guide (also by Davey Wreden), One Shot, Undertale and Deltarune, Omori, and SOMA all deal with putting player agency to question.

Diary of a Spaceport Janitor is a slice of life/poverty simulator in which you scrape by earning pennies, dreaming of escape and adventure. Full of charm!

Miasmata is a horror/cartography game where you have to triangulate PoIs in order to fill out your map as you search for a cure to your disease on an uninhibited tropical island.

Yoku’s Island Express is a metroidvania/pinball game in which you traverse the world vis flippers, chutes, and as a bug rolling a ball.

Goblin Cleanup - I never got around to Viscera Cleanup Detail, so I figured I’d give the demo of this a shot. Honestly, it was a great few hours with 2 friends for free. You play as goblin maids cleaning up a dungeon after (presumably) a TPK. You have to mop blood using slimes, put furnature back in place, feed meat chunks to a mimic, and power up traps using a mana device. Oh, and the traps will kill you too… causing extra work for you (or your laughing/annoyed friends).

This could be the first major game to properly implement a truly infinite divergent quest system! There have been plenty of attempts in the past, but this team has a lot of experience with procedural generation. Looking forward to this one.

You mean another one? Impossible Lair was actually great.

That’s just survivor bias. Gaming spaces are better when harassment is punished.

This is awful news :(

Try out Predecessor, it’s F2P and exactly this

Probably not exactly what you’re looking for, but Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was a great campaign that’s technically an FPS with a lot of RPG heaped on top.

SNES??? How could RPS do Sega dirty like that…

EDIT: rofl there’s an update to the article:

Update 26th April 2024: As has been pointed out to me overnight by a thousand helpful, furious strangers, describing a Sega fangame (one with Saturn button prompts, no less) as “SNES-style” is a crime deserving of imprisonment in the deepest depths of the Labyrinth Zone. Speaking as a former Genesis/Mega Drive diehard, I can only hang my head.

The Offending Content has been purged

Coffee Stain and Middle Earth are some really strange names to land on considering Embracer’s massive IP holdings. Is the Goat Sim developer really expected to be the face of their F2P and “”“indie”“” games? Middle Earth will now be associated with the biggest AAA conglomerate?

EDIT: ah the final names are still TBD

I was hyped for Animal Well before it got picked up by Big Mode, but the signal boost it’s gotten has me excited that it’ll be a big thing for a few weeks. This kind of game doesn’t often go viral.

If you want something similar in the meantime, I highly recommend Knytt Underground, Rain World, or Gato Roboto. Or check out Within A Deep Forest for free.

I hope Loading Ready Run finds this

And to their credit, they just announced that all new heroes will be free and unlocked for everyone.

But yeah I stopped playing months ago. The Bebop collab intrigued me, but they really dropped the ball with Spike and Ein.