Table of contents for December 2022 in Edge

One of the most irritating things about the GTAVI hack was the fact that no one benefited. If these things have to happen, we should at least get something worthwhile out of it, right? What we got instead felt a bit like the videogame equivalent of the section of that work-in-progress trailer for The Mummy in which Tom Cruise bounces around a plane interior with odd placeholder audio – something difficult to get excited about because it’s not ready to be consumed in the context of trying to make you excited. Rockstar will be seething that its game broke cover this way and not via the kind of pitch-perfect trailer that famously accompanied IV and V. It must also be aggravating because of the stature of the project, which is…

Humble Bundle’s executive vice president and general manager Alan Patmore came to the company in 2019, having previously founded Surreal Software and then taken senior roles at Double Fine, Zynga and Kixeye. As Humble’s growth in stature and fortunes continues apace, we ask him about what brought him here, how the company has changed, and its mission for the future. What drew you to the role at Humble? I’d heard of Humble Bundle, and really valued their purpose, which is being a force for good in gaming. But then, I was in free-to-play for about seven years, and was really getting burned out with it and wanted to get back to my roots of game development. The publishing side of the [Humble] business really connected with me. I saw…

“We are committed to making the same game available on the same day on both Xbox and PlayStation. We want people to have more access to games, not less.” ”With the cheap labour of a developing country, you could use people in the Philippines as real-life NPCs in your game.” ”I was sending messages to some of my teammates saying: ‘Oh god, this will be the last game I ever do’.” “Think about the 100 greatest moments of your life. Do any of those moments include videogames? Probably not. And this comes from a lifetime gamer.”…

Run down the list of last year’s top ten bestselling books in the UK and you’ll find ten books that were originally written in English. It’s the same for movies – though in fairness Parasite, from South Korea, just about squeaked into 2020’s top ten. Brits just don’t seem to be excited by fiction from other countries – but the trend is very different for games. Out of the top ten games sold last year, franchise stalwarts such as FIFA and Call Of Duty made up most of the list, but if you included digital sales (which Nintendo doesn’t report, annoyingly), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons almost certainly would’ve made it in, with Super Mario 3D World and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond also in the running. It’s…

Developer Obsidian Entertainment Publisher Microsoft Game Studios Format PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series Origin US Release November Pentiment’s painted landscapes and scribed dialogue evoke medieval tomes blessed by fine calligraphy and marginalia. Its premise, however, brings to mind a book from more recent history. Guiding journeyman artist Andreas Maler to investigate the murder of a nobleman in his local abbey, we feel like we’ve stepped into the sandals of William Of Baskerville in The Name Of The Rose. And sure enough, Pentiment’s director Josh Sawyer later confirms, that’s very much by intent. “My initial pitch of this was ‘Night In The Woods meets The Name Of The Rose’,” he tells us. “I have two tattoos from there. It’s my favourite novel and I love Umberto Eco.” For Obsidian, a studio…

Developer Keoken Interactive Publisher Frontier Developments Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Origin The Netherlands Release February 2 Gravity may be low on Mars, but a long fall still hurts. So, as we stare across a deep quarry and realise we need to get to the other side, a careful climb down is the only sensible option. Our astronaut is at least equipped for the job, packing a pair of lightweight pickaxes. We smash them into a patch of soft rock, holding both triggers to keep them embedded, then descend tentatively, releasing the right-hand axe, stretching down, digging it in again, then repeating the routine with the left. The control system is instantly logical, yet demands method and concentration. Release the triggers together at any time, and you…

Only a year or two ago, Embracer wasn’t a name familiar to many videogame followers – most likely because the company’s only gone by that name since 2019, when it rebranded from THQ Nordic – but it’s long been one of the biggest, if quietest, players in the industry. At latest count, it has 222 games in development across 127 internal studios, and a headcount of 14,800 employees. But if once we could have characterised Embracer as a hidden leviathan, the past year has put an end to that, thanks to a series of high-profile acquisitions. In that time, it’s bought up the western operations of Square Enix, along with the rights to Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Thief, alongside a host of smaller developers, from Killing Floor creator Tripwire…

STILL PLAYING Nobody Saves The World PC The Frozen Hearth DLC gives us reason to revisit Drinkbox’s action-RPG, offering two new unlockable forms. Getting your hands on them involves first earning medals across various challenges in a colosseum, the golds requiring plenty of experimentation to find the right ability combinations. After the first set you’ll gain the Mechanic, who has a four-hit wrench combo and a deployable turret, while the fast-moving Killer Bee’s stinger produces health-giving honey – anecessity given its crit-guaranteeing sting hurts to use. All in all, it’s a short, sweet but inessential expansion. Immortality PC One minor irritation about playing a game before anyone else – particularly the kind of game that might, for example, convince you that inserting word-based match-cuts in a review is a good…

Anyone who played the original Splatoon on Wii U will recognise the change in one of its returning maps. Indeed, had it not been one of the first game’s finest multiplayer stages, you could be forgiven for thinking Hammerhead Bridge had been brought back purely for narrative purposes. Back in 2015, it was still in the process of being built, with several elevated grated sections. Now it’s all solid ground. Its purpose in the Splatoon universe is to connect Inklandia – where you’ll find Inkopolis Plaza and Square – to the Splatlands where the new city hub, Splatsville, is situated. This thriving Kowloon-inspired metropolis is larger and more diverse than its predecessors and offers more reminders that time passes in the Splatoon universe as it does in the real world.…

Developer Spiders Publisher Nacon Format PC (tested), PS5, Xbox Series Release Out now Developing a Soulslike poses a very particular challenge. FromSoftware’s output is the yardstick by which all others are measured, and the studio has a habit of putting greater distance between it and its peers. Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring all have a certain je ne sais quoi, something beyond the features they all share with pretenders to their throne. Steelrising, a Soulslike that wears its influences proudly, is a daring move from Spiders – adeveloper known for creating characterful but unspectacular RPGs. Since its previous title, Greedfall, was a major step in a positive direction, returning to the Soulslike – given the critical response to its previous attempt, the underwhelming Bound By Flame – is a…

Developer Color Gray Games Publisher Playstack Format PC Release October 13 Any detective story worth its salt needs a good villain, and this clever, complex and exuberantly macabre tale from Latvian brothers Andrejs and Ernests delivers a veritable rogues’ gallery. From scheming aristocrats to their unscrupulous cohorts, these are ugly people inside and out: jowly and bloated, or pinched and sinister, they’re memorably drawn in every sense. There’s barely anyone who doesn’t look like a potential suspect – another essential ingredient of a good detective story. It helps that they’re so memorable, since several of them resurface – not always under the same name – throughout a tale that spans four decades and over a dozen grisly murders, one that puts your ability to recognise faces and recall details to…

Developer Splashteam Publisher TinyBuild Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now For a while there, it felt as if Nintendo was almost singlehandedly keeping the 3D platformer alive. But, setting aside the returns of Sonic and Crash, in recent years it’s been indies that have picked up the slack. With Tinykin, developer Splashteam liberally borrows from Kyoto’s finest, but rather than attempt a Mario-like, it nods towards a pair of less obvious sources. Its tale of an intrepid astronaut harnessing the powers of indigenous creatures to navigate tricky terrain and carry everyday items to make his way home is clearly indebted to Pikmin, while downsizing its lead to turn household environments into sprawling expanses calls back to Chibi-Robo. But this is a less fricative…

Dialogue Send your views, using ‘Dialogue’ as the subject line, to edge@futurenet.com. Our letter of the month wins an exclusive Edge T-shirt. Creed is good Aren’t you tired of Elden Ring? Doesn’t it just remind you of being 18 again and doing your Duke Of Edinburgh Gold Award, stuck on a Welsh hillside in January with a rickety tent and a compass that you have no idea how to read? Well, I might have just the game for you. Not only is it a breath of fresh air, I think it could even be the future of open-world games after FromSoft nearly ruined them. It’s by a little-known but up-and-coming studio called Ubisoft (the better ‘soft’, in my opinion), and the game in question is called Assassin’s Creed. Instead of…

Familiar, but new: that’s the mantra Nightdive Studio has adopted for its remake of PC classic System Shock. The prospect of updating such a seminal work must be a daunting one, but CEO Stephen Kick is making all the right noises. Its concessions to modern design feel eminently sensible, the original’s awkward user interface reworked to more closely resemble its beloved 1999 successor. Yet Kick is also keen to preserve the original’s feel, refusing to budge on its lurid palette while getting out of the player’s way after early tooltips and control explanations so that we can figure out the rest ourselves. And there are just enough changes to the original that those who know it inside and out will find themselves wrong-footed from time to time – you are,…

Developer/ publisher Cyborn Format Index, PSVR2, Quest, Rift, Vive Origin Belgium Release 2022 (Index, Rift, Vive), 2023 (PSVR2, Quest) Our mission on Hubris’s alien planet begins underwater. Fortunately, a tutorial has already showed us how to swim, and when we exit our landing capsule semi-submerged in a tranquil lake it’s the first lesson we have to call upon. These opening moments almost feel like a birth, as we paddle up until our head breaks the surface, unveiling the big, wide world. And what a view we’re treated to: blue skies, the arc of a moon, a mysterious monolith. It’s not unlike when we first saw the curve of the ring in Halo, perhaps, yet now with the sense of depth afforded by VR. Such a cinematic reveal shouldn’t be surprising…

Developer Shape Shop Publisher Outersloth Format PC Origin Australia Release 2023 Playing Mars First Logistics, we quickly become aware that we’d never have made it as a NASA engineer. Having been given a rough completion time for this handful of early tasks, we find ourselves exceeding that estimate on one mission alone, our various additions to the basic rover with which we’ve been provided to fulfil a series of deliveries causing it to capsize at the slightest provocation: accelerating up a gentle slope, say, or brushing the right rear wheel against a small rock. Sure, we can reset our haphazardly constructed vehicle in a pinch, but doing so means we have to pick our cargo up again – ajob that is a good deal trickier than it sounds. Your first…

It’s perhaps fitting that, as we celebrate a trip back to Monkey Island, there’s a distinctly point-and-click flavour to this issue’s Play section. No fewer than seven games are at the very least adjacent to the genre, if not quite belonging to it – ahappy accident of scheduling, we’re sure, as opposed to a weary craving for something that taxes our brains rather than our (slightly) waning reflexes. Or is it? Perhaps this is, in fact, a wider trend towards more cerebral fare, at least within the indie space. Either way, we’re feasting: joining Ron Gilbert’s bright, nostalgia-soaked return is a point-and-click adventure of a much darker hue in The Excavation Of Hob’s Barrow. Neither of those games, in truth, is likely to have you stuck on its puzzles for…

This engrossing fantasy RPG may be predominantly text-based, but one of its finest tricks is entirely visual. A large window dominates the centre of the screen, containing flavourful descriptions of the place you’re visiting or the people you’re conversing with, above the available actions or answers. To the right is a sidebar noting key stats, as well as options to wait, travel or check your inventory. On the left, your location is illustrated in isometric pixel art, using an eight-colour palette of yellows and browns. In key locations, these images come together piece by piece as you explore them, adding to the thrill of discovery. One delightful early twist on this sees a settlement instantly fill the window as you clamber up to a high vantage point. But it’s often…

Developer The Outsiders Publisher Funcom Format PC (tested), PS5, Xbox Series Release Out now The rhythm shooter was, perhaps, inevitable. After all, a sense of timing and the ability to predict what’s coming next serve you equally well whether you’re lining up a head in your crosshairs or strutting your stuff on a Dance Dance Revolution machine. While Metal: Hellsinger is far from the first entry in this hybrid genre – recent years have brought us BPM, Audica and Pistol Whip – it might be the most high profile. This is in part due to the pedigree of Swedish developer The Outsiders, formed by Battlefield and Payday 2 veteran David Goldfarb, but also as a result of its musical genre. Because if the rhythm shooter was inevitable, one set to…

Developer BKOM Studios Publisher Team17 Format PC Release Out now Timing is everything during a heist, but seldom as obviously as in Sunday Gold – apoint-and-click crime caper that is technically a single 15–20-hour turn-based RPG encounter, played out in mansions, warehouses and laboratories across a near-future London. Whether in combat or scouring 2D backdrops for clues and tools, the game’s cast of career criminals take turns to spend points on actions such as rifling through lockers or pulling levers. While no enemies are visible during exploration, ending the turn usually raises the local alertness level, sometimes triggering a scrap. It fills what might otherwise be laidback escape-room puzzles with urgency. Rather than fiddling at leisure, you try to crack each riddle in one fell swoop, picking terrain interactions as…

Developer/publisher Ghost Pattern Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series  Release Out now When you’re a teenager, the school holidays can fly by. Fourteen-year-old Casey Beaumaris isn’t exactly delighted, then, when her mother asks her to spend three of her days off aboard the airborne hospice where she works – although the would-be reporter senses an opportunity to write about it for her school newspaper. As an overworked nurse says, “you’re going to have to choose how to spend your own time” in Ghost Pattern’s gentle adventure – and just as the staff struggle to balance caring for the elderly residents against preparation for an important visitor, it dawns upon you that you can’t be everywhere at once. In that sense, Wayward Strand has plenty in common…

The three-storey shell of a former Burger King, around the back of a Stevenage shopping centre, might not be quite the spot you’d imagine for a reawakening. But it’s where Newvu has chosen for the first of its planned chain of social gaming spaces – akind of small-scale answer to the Belong arenas operated by Game across the UK. And, as the country’s leisure industry continues to recover from the disastrous effects of the pandemic, Newvu is just one example of businesses embracing in-person game venues with fervour. It’s also something of an unusual one, in that it doesn’t have an alcohol licence. Having started to spring up in force before the pandemic, gaming bars are now coming back stronger than ever. The past year has brought a new Peckham…

Out of all the attractions offered by your local pub, darts is perhaps the closest relative of videogames, with play involving simply pointing at a target and unleashing a shot. That makes it particularly appropriate for some interactive gubbins on top, as demonstrated by Augmented Reality Darts, which uses a projector to create special targets depending on the chosen game mode, as well as handling scoring automatically. Importantly, the system uses normal steel-tipped darts, ensuring that seasoned players can get stuck in easily, with a board provided by dart industry stalwart Unicorn. Developed by UK company 501 Entertainment, ARD has already been installed across a number of venues in its homeland, but a recently inked distribution deal with Sega is intended to push the hardware into worldwide markets. Whether or…

So that you don’t have to, I recently read two books on the Metaverse in order to report on what some self-appointed experts on the Metaverse think the Metaverse actually is, even though it literally does not yet exist. The results were confusing when not actually alarming, but for the benefit of the Edge readership in particular I can happily report that one thing the Metaverse definitely seems to be is a giant rebadging of gamification for the credulous 2020s. As you know, gamification was once a hot rhetorical trend according to which all manner of difficult social problems could be solved by simply turning everything into a videogame, with stars and points and leaderboards and whatnot, this process being sold by some hucksters as a panacea for everything from…

Developer Supermassive Games Publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Origin UK Release Nov 18 At a time when the videogame industry is beset by delays, there’s something almost supernatural about Supermassive’s ability to release a Dark Pictures game every year. And yet The Devil In Me has nothing to do with otherworldly forces, as this fourth entry in the horror anthology (and ‘season finale’) places us in the hands of a sadistic but very human serial killer. “He’s got hold of this idea that murder could be an art form,” game director Tom Heaton tells us, “and he’s trying to create the perfect, most appropriate death for each character.” The pitch only grows more grisly as details are revealed. The inspiration here is HH…

Developer In-house, Armor Project, Bird Studio Publisher Square Enix Format Switch Origin Japan Release December 9 This spinoff and prequel to Dragon Quest XI begins with a playful trick: the first treasure chest you encounter can’t be opened; instead, a text box teases that you will soon discover plenty of treasures to claim for yourself. The ‘you’ in this case is plural, with the story focusing on blue-haired siblings Erik and Mia during happier times – well, relatively speaking, as we begin with the two orphans enslaved aboard a Viking ship, plotting their escape. The Dragon Quest series has always targeted a broad audience. In Japan, especially, it’s loved by children and adults alike, but as a Switch exclusive starring two younger protagonists (as well as two talking fairies that…

Michele Caletti, executive producer at Milestone, has been at the Milanese studio “forever”. At least, that’s according to the estimations of game design manager Andrea Basilio and lead game designer Federico Spada. In actuality, Caletti joined in 2003, seven years into the studio’s life. Over the course of our conversations, though, it becomes clear that in some fundamental way, Caletti is Milestone. Asked about the studio’s formation, he speaks for 30 unbroken minutes. Every word of that monologue radiates passion, but Caletti might have found himself with less to talk about had Milestone not so dramatically transformed itself in the years immediately after he joined. 2003 was a pivotal year for the studio, which began in 1994 as Graffiti and under founder Antonio Farina’s leadership made a name for itself…

We open on a clear, blue sky – as vivid a hue as any with which you’ll ink your environment and opponents in Splatoon 3. In the wastes below, an Inkling shelters from the baking sun, shawled in a threadbare cloak, sporting mirrored shades and what appears to be some kind of breathing apparatus. Once you’ve chosen their look and that of their diminutive salmonid ally, you’re thrust into a brisk control tutorial. Then it’s a short journey aboard a train to Splatsville, a new city hub. It’s only then that we remember Nintendo’s promise that the result of Splatoon 2’s final Splatfest would be honoured by the third game. Chaos reigned, though you’d be hard-pushed to tell: the new hosts’ broadcasts and the ranked modes might have ‘anarchy’ in…

Developer Terrible Toybox Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC (tested), Switch   Release Out now There is a COVID joke in Return To Monkey Island. This shouldn’t be surprising, given that the series has always given its pirates distinctly modern concerns – retirement, health inspections, adequately expressing the power of Loom’s 3D engine. The gag, involving two pirates vehemently denying any of the so-called ‘science’ on scurvy, shows that designer Ron Gilbert wants his game to fit in the present day. This is a Monkey Island that has a hint system. A Monkey Island with a controller setup that won’t break your fingers. But it’s also very much a game that tries to capture the essence of a journey that started all the way back in 1990, a story it’s now…

Developer Cloak And Dagger Games Publisher Wadjet Eye Games Format PC Release Out now The defining image of Cloak And Dagger Games’ absorbing Victorian horror adventure is an extreme close-up of its protagonist’s eyes. It’s used as a device to herald a flashback to antiquarian Thomasina Bateman’s childhood, before the incident at the titular burial mound that left her father bedridden and mute. But late on, as her quest to discover what happened to him approaches its end, you’ll see that image recur, those eyes staring either in awestruck wonder or abject horror, occasionally blinking in disbelief. Each time you’ll naturally steel yourself for what’s about to follow, but as with Bateman, your desire to know will always trump your concern about what you might find out. And there’s no…

Developer/publisher Sheinman Games Format PC Release Out now He was a boy, she was a girl. Riley was a punk, albeit one of the gentler variety – asensitive boy with a guitar, a difficult relationship with his father, and fears of selling out – and while it’s not exactly accurate to say Rochelle did ballet, she did spend her childhood in beauty pageants. Invoking the work of Lavigne et al (2002) might be blasphemy, given this game’s fixation on the ’90s, but we can’t help thinking: could Riley & Rochelle make it a little less obvious? The frame of the story is laid out in a prologue that casts you as a scriptwriter researching the lives of this ’90s celebrity couple for a biopic. This is a love story, a…