Battlefield 6 is back for its second weekend beta, coming with new game modes to mess around with. Unfortunately, it's also bringing along some substantial matchmaking issues for a significant chunk of the playerbase across PC and console.
Some neat news for mobile gamers, with both Enter the Gungeon and Exit the Gungeon arriving on mobile devices (Android and iOS) today. For those not in the know, Enter the Gungeon is a bullet-hell dungeon crawler rougelike, originally released back in 2016. The spin-off, Exit the Dungeon, is more of a dungeon climbing game, and first hit Apple Arcade back in September 2019.
Place and pacing are what Mafia: The Old Country does best. The artists and programmers at Hangar 13 have crafted an evocative and unflinching rendering of Sicily at the turn of the twentieth century: dappled lemon groves; vineyards snaking down steep hills; mines filled with indentured slaves, every face and fruit bowl lit with the exquisite, high-drama flair of a Caravaggio painting. The scriptwriters and narrative designers have kept up their end of the bargain, producing an ebbing, flowing mob story which puts as much emphasis on quietness as cracking skulls. Place and pacing are symbiotic: it's through languorous car drives and trotting horse rides that we come to appreciate the setting. In almost every chapter, the volcanic Mount Etna smokes ominously in the distance, the skybox wielded as a perfect visual metaphor for the violence bubbling just below the surface of this picturesque island.
There's a moment with Drag x Drive that I'm just getting to grips with. I think there's potentially a lot of strategy in this moment, a lot of gamesmanship. But Nintendo's latest multiplayer confection is new and quite nuanced and so the entire playerbase is currently getting to grips with it too. I am genuinely fascinated to see, in a week or so, how it's all playing out.
I don't mind admitting it; this little write-up would have been published much sooner if I hadn't made the silly mistake of firing up Dorfromantik first to give my brain a bit of a refresher. And, honestly, I should have known better. This gem from Toukana Interactive is easily one of my favourite – and I might even go as far as to suggest best – strategic puzzlers from the last five years. It's also one of the most soothingly, hypnotically compelling, so as I prepare to alert you to its new arrival on Xbox and PlayStation, consider yourself warned.
Everyone loves Vampire Survivors, the budget-priced, super moreish bullet-hell game from Poncle. The game has seen various updates and expansions since its initial release in December 2021, and now the game is shedding its digital clothes and heading into the real world thanks to a board game.
Sonic the Hedgehog isn't loved by everyone, but most people can agree that the music in his games is generally top-tier stuff. We expect the soundtrack to the upcoming Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds will be stellar, and Sega has released a brand new video that highlights six of the tunes in the game..jpg?width=1920&height=1920&fit=bounds&quality=70&format=jpg&auto=webp)
You really don't have to look far to find all sorts of praise for the Battlefield 6 beta's first weekend. Longtime series fans - and anyone who got caught up in the hype and was convinced to try out the beta - have a lot of kind things to say.
The PC release of Stellar Blade has proven exceptionally popular, with developer Shift Up revealing impressive sales earlier this week in its latest financial report. But it's not only a huge win for the studio and publisher Sony, it's also exemplary of a booming games industry in South Korea seeking global expansion..png?width=1920&height=1920&fit=bounds&quality=70&format=jpg&auto=webp)
Ghost of Yōtei for PlayStation 5 edges closer and closer to its October release date, but if you are finding the wait hard to take then this short but sweet gameplay trailer might ease your suffering.
Can he do it again? The creator of Steam sensation Bongo Cat, Marcel Zurawka, is taking a new idle typing game to Gamescom as he searches for a publisher for it. He won't tell me what it is yet when we talk on Discord, because he only has a small build to show publishers, he says, and is a month or two from revealing more. But if Zurawka can leverage even a fraction of Bongo Cat's audience to play the new game, it could be huge.
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Elysium Game Studio has released a brand-new gameplay trailer for its third- and first-person action RPG, Neo Berlin 2087. According to the developer's official website, the game is coming to PS5, Xbox Series consoles, and PC.
"First of all, it's just super fun in a video game to move," Matt Nava tells me, with the certainty of someone stating the absolute obvious. And he's dead right.
If you simply can't get enough authentic firefighting video games, publisher Aerosoft has got some great news: Emergency Call 112 - The Firefighting Simulation 3 is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles, and is in development at crenetic.
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