One of the latest to go down the Game Preview and Game Pass route is that of Lightyear Frontier, a game that takes farming sim elements but puts it into space.
As you may be aware, the recent network test of ELDEN RING has taken place, and thanks to FromSoftware I was fortunate enough to score a code without having to resort to paying all the money on eBay for one. What I hope to present to you here is the collected thoughts of my time spent running about the place, often with a gang of soldiers on my tail, and to try and find out whether this is more than just Dark Souls in a pretty new frock.Â
It was the surprise announcement of E3 2021: that Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment will be taking gamers into the world of the number one film of all time in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. What was most surprising about it was actually how out of left-field this came.
We’re blessed on the Xbox with a glut of high-quality, fiercely challenging survival sims. Subnautica, No Man’s Sky and Rust may be the first that come to mind, but there are plenty of others. Residual has a fight on its hands to survive in that environment. However, having buried hours of our life into its hazardous surface, we can say that it does a lot to justify itself.
With Left 4 Dead, Turtle Rock Studios brought a new way to gather your friends and slay some zombies. Evolve took that formula and replaced the zombies with alien creatures. Now, TRS is at it again with Back 4 Blood. Returning to the world of the undead, the open beta for Back 4 Blood has given us a glimpse of what we can expect when the game launches fully in October.Â
Arriving on Xbox on an unconfirmed date in 2021, Unbound: Worlds Apart is a Metroidvania that comes from reliable publishers Digerati (Sunless Sea, Tower of Time) and newby developers Alien Pixel Studios.Â
While the start of the year was looking kinda barren for Xbox, the latter half of the year is quickly looking to make up for any shortcomings. Death's Door and Microsoft Flight Simulator were released to widespread acclaim. The Ascent has just launched and shows tremendous promise. 12 Minutes looks incredibly promising. Of course, I'd also be remiss not to mention two little games called Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite. However, sandwiched between these incredibly promising games is The Artful Escape, the debut title from Beethoven and Dinosaur.
When Andrzej Sapkowski's classic series Wiedźmin was first translated into English, it was known by the name 'The Hexer'. Obviously, the name never stuck, and the series was later rechristened 'The Witcher'. However, it is arguably two decades after this event, that a game kinda fits the Hexer title to a tee - King's Bounty II.
Coming to PC Early Access soon and consoles in 2022 is Space Punks, the latest looter shooter vying for your attention. This time, it is Flying Wild Hog’s turn to develop their own title, the teams responsible for the Shadow Warrior series and Hard Reset Redux. With their pedigree of making fast-paced shooters, and with the power of Jagex Partners backing them up, Space Punks could well be your next favourite time-sink.
Developed by Nerd Monkeys and published by Hatinh Interactive, Out of Line is an adventure platformer with a heavy emphasis on puzzle-solving. With no dialogue or text boxes, the narrative of the game is told through details in the background and the actions of the characters. Which makes sense, given that the most eye-catching aspect of Out of Line is the art style - the entire game is in a hand-drawn 2D style; this includes the characters, animations, and backgrounds.
What is Eldest Souls? Well, it’s a strange beast to try to explain. Imagine Dark Souls, with an isometric top-down view, and with no little enemies, just the bosses. With me so far? Now imagine that game with perfectly executed pixel art graphics in a 16-bit style, and you’re about halfway there.
We were recently invited to a hands-off presentation of upcoming action-RPG sequel ELEX II, shown a quick video of some early gameplay footage and given the chance to ask some questions afterwards. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get us mildly excited for this upcoming release that offers a lot of promise.
I think that the battle royale genre is here to stay. Sure, upcoming titles like Halo Infinite and Battlefield 2042 have said that they won’t be including any battle royale modes, but the currently popular battle royales like Call of Duty: Warzone and Fortnite show no sign of slowing down. That popularity means we’ll definitely keep seeing battle royale games pop up, and I surely hope they continue to be as inventive as Super Animal Royale.
In 1993, Id Software revolutionized the first person shooter genre with Doom. Finally, in 1996 the studio was ready for a proper follow-up. Needless to say there was a lot to live up to, especially for it to succeed. Arguably just as revolutionary and fantastic as its spiritual predecessor, Quake came out as another huge success - both critically and commercially.
