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“Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!” Hearthstone pro Chung ‘Blitzchung’ Ng Wai cops a tournament ban for supporting protesters in Hong Kong, and sparks an industry-wide controversy “Blizzard shows it is willing to humiliate itself to please the Chinese Communist Party. No American company should censor calls for freedom to make a quick buck.” United States senator Ron Wyden slams the Hearthstone maker for seemingly kowtowing to oppression “Epic is a US company… that will never happen on my watch as the founder, CEO and controlling shareholder.” As ever, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney simply can’t resist an opportunity to cast his company in a flattering light “If you search for anything PewDiePie-related on any Reddit-related forum in China or any YouTube related videos, it will just be completely blank.”…

Developer/publisher Revolution Software Format iOS, PC, Switch Origin UK Release March (iOS), 2020 (Switch, PC) Don’t call it a sequel. Then again, Charles Cecil isn’t entirely sure of an appropriate alternative to describe the successor to 1994’s Beneath A Steel Sky. “I mean, it follows on,” he says. “It’s very much set in the same world. But the game is so totally different.” He’s not wrong. Beyond goes, well, beyond any game Revolution has made in the 25 years since Beneath. During that time, you could argue that York’s finest has never fully lived up to its name; it’s kept the lights on by sticking to what it does best. Witty? Absolutely. Entertaining? Sure. But hardly revolutionary. Yet its recent success – and a little financial assistance from Apple –…

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Format PC Developer/publisher Failbetter Games Origin UK Release 2019 The British empire never made it beyond the atmosphere, but in a way, its history is one of space conquest. Lacking landmarks, 19th-century sailors navigated using the stars. To map the heavens was thus to help expand Britain’s reach as a naval power. Victorian British ideas about outer space were also shaped by the experience of colonising other lands. “They didn’t know about the vacuum – they didn’t have any concept of what that means,” Failbetter artist Tobias Cook reflects. “They thought about outer space in terms of how they thought about other frontiers.” A game about what an astral British empire might look like, if astrophysics itself were reimagined along Victorian lines, Sunless Skies magnifies those frontier daydreams, then holds…

Switch: is it a handheld or a home console? The obvious answer is that it’s both – at least in its original form. And yet Nintendo seems to have made a clear distinction between the two. The original Switch was marketed primarily as a home console, albeit one you could take anywhere. Now Switch Lite offers an exclusively portable alternative. The games, obviously, have to work across both devices. But then since day one Switch has forced developers to consider the kind of game that works whether you’re slouched on a sofa with an evening stretching out in front of you, or looking to enliven, say, a short daily commute. Many Switch games work equally well either way, though some feel better suited to docked rather than undocked play and…

Developer Bithell Games Publisher Good Shepherd Entertainment Format PC Release Out now There have been many attempts to adapt action movies into videogames over the years, and most have taken the obvious routes, resulting in firstperson shooters and thirdperson brawlers that largely fail to capture the thrills of big-screen violence. John Wick: Hex follows a different path. Bithell Games takes a series renowned for the brutal fluidity of its fight scenes and turns it into a strategy game. It’s a fascinatingly leftfield approach which displaces the fantasy – not so much about playing the hero as the team behind their stunts, putting the player in a role somewhere between fight choreographer and editor. The campaign is split up into tightly contained maps, each of them equivalent to a single action…

Developer Obsidian Entertainment Publisher Private Division Format PS4 (tested), Xbox One, PC Release Out now From a distance, Edgewater looks hospitable. Its Victorian streets are lined with neon signs, and corporate cartoon mascots vie for your attention as you wander between guards wearing ‘better not start anything’ body armour. Having just walked through a wilderness populated by Raptidons and marauders who attack on sight before you made it through the gate, it feels like a haven of order and regulation. It’s not until you get talking to a woman in the sick house and hear about how she’s been exiled because her illness has reduced her productivity that you start to see the rot. The fear just behind everyone’s eyes as you talk to them. Then you think back to…

Developer/publisher Night School Studio Format PC (tested), PS4, Xbox One Release Out now As Sartre once noted, hell is other people – especially at a party where you’re the only sober one. Afterparty’s setup is a peach: two high school graduates unexpectedly find themselves in the underworld and have to outdrink Satan to earn their ticket back to the land of the living. But in practice, it’s like being dragged against your will into a conversation with a loquacious lush. If Night School’s goal was to prove that being drunk can be intensely irritating to others – the game’s stance on booze culture predictably boils down to ‘everything in moderation’ – then job done. If nothing else, you’ll have newfound sympathy for designated drivers, because here you’re effectively put in…

Developer Kong Orange Publisher Daedalic Entertainment Format PC, PS4, Switch (tested), Xbox One Release Out now Who knew being a grim reaper was so arduous? Making sure people snuff it when their number’s up involves a lot of legwork and heavy lifting. As Felix, a field reaper for the Ministry Of Death, it’s your job to meddle in events so they play out as destiny intends. Time freezes as you enter the world, allowing you to shift the scene around then disappear before the grisly results unfold. It’s a fun premise that somehow translates into lugging boxes and barrels about. Each level has you relocate a key item (some rocks, a goat) to build a deadly chain of events. But since you can only work in the shadows, progress depends…

We don’t tend to cover the subgenre of arcade gaming that goes by ‘videmption’, and that’s not only because of the messiness of the term (though that’s certainly part of it). Rather, it’s because the dominant coin-op business model has had a similar sort of effect on coin-op game design as the success of free-to-play has had on mobile-game mechanics. Here, sessions are short, gameplay is basic and the reward is not in the playing, but in the strip of tickets the machine spews out at the end. We’ll make an exception for Hot Wheels: King Of The Road, however, for all that it bears the hallmarks of the videmption model: sessions are short, at just 60 seconds per race, and the mid trailer flash about winning up to 300…

Developer Phigames Publisher Dear Villagers Format PC Origin UK Release 2020 Blacks and reds coagulate into a trash polka conglomerate of data. You, The Program, are a virus injected into a computer to end the post-apocalyptic war raging outside the machine, and begin as the most basic version of yourself: an orange blur of perpetually recompiling code, destined to manipulate the otherwise intangible by platforming your way through the anomalous spheres of the Mainframe. Recompile designer Phi Dinh tells us that this unique world was born from memories of childhood curiosity. “Growing up, my dad always encouraged me to mess around with computers,” he explains. “Kept me off the streets, I guess.” By age 11, Dinh had developed a keen interest in games and had taught himself MS-DOS commands and…

Developer/publisher ZA/UM Studio Format PC Release Out now They descend on you as you struggle to wake, bloodied and hungover, in the ruins of a hotel room: a barrage of voices, like pirate radio stations competing for the same frequency. In ZA/UM’s brilliant, crackpot hybrid of alternate-1970s whodunnit and Black Isle-era CRPG, your character traits are themselves characters who live inside your head. A vast chunk of the game’s million-word script is given over to interjections only you, a self-destructive amnesiac detective, can hear – interjections that range from advice through good-natured heckling to frothing contempt. Some voices urge you to be methodical, to show restraint when interviewing suspects, or think twice about somebody’s testimony. Others encourage you to throw punches, spout sexist invective or chase invisible insects. Inspired by…

Developer/publisher Bungie Format PC (tested), PS4, Xbox One Release Out now We feel like we’ve been here before. Not the Moon – we’ve definitely been here before, running endless laps of our farming routes for Helium Filaments in the original Destiny. But Destiny itself has been at this point previously: a flawed, if occasionally irresistible first year; a redemption job 12 months later; and now this, where Bungie has to decide what works and what doesn’t about a game that was already in pretty good shape, spends most of its time tinkering in the margins, and puts out something that naturally can’t hit the heights of the dramatic rescue mission that came before it. First there was Rise Of Iron; now there is Shadowkeep. Here, for the second time in…

Developer Lab Zero Games Publisher 505 Games Format PC, PS4 (tested), Switch, Xbox One Release Out now You shouldn’t be able to tell that a Kickstarter game is a Kickstarter game. Taken on its own, Indivisible’s strategically and visually vibrant combat system certainly doesn’t read Kickstarter. But Indivisible is, like any other game, meant to be interpreted as a whole – and the rest of its pieces don’t quite sit flush. Perhaps, when the player is footing the bill for development, it’s not enough to just make a great combat game. You have to add platforming sections for variety, and half-hearted puzzles to draw out the runtime. And instead of populating areas with believable NPCs, you have to cram in all the waifu-bait backer concepts you possibly can. Still, that…

Developer A Brave Plan Publisher Bossa Studios Format iOS (tested), PC, PS4, Xbox One Release Out now There’s nothing worse than wasted potential. The Bradwell Conspiracy had all the promise of a solid puzzle-adventure: a team of triple-A veterans and BAFTA luminaries behind it, and a killer key mechanic. In Bossa Studios’ latest you use a 3D printer gun to transform ‘substance’ into corporeal objects and solve puzzles. Well, sometimes. The ability is woefully underused throughout the game’s brief runtime. It’s also poorly and unoriginally implemented. Indeed, the overall impression is of a game whose thrilling concepts proved too complex to execute properly. The Bradwell Conspiracy has serious problems, then, but you wouldn’t know it from the first hour or so. The explosive introduction is captivating: you wake up in…

Developer Chance Agency Publisher Fellow Traveller Format iOS, PC (both tested), Switch Release Out now Amazingly, none of your passengers in Chance Agency’s slick, incisive visual novel asks you what time you’re on ’til. As fares go, they’re an unusually talkative bunch – but then most of them are using the Neo Cab app specifically so they can be ferried about by a human driver. You are, after all, the only one of your kind in a near-future city of automated vehicles, here to reunite with a mercurial friend. After giving you a Feelgrid, a mood bracelet of sorts that gives a clear visual indication of your current emotions (red for anger, yellow for joy, blue for… well, take a wild guess) she promptly vanishes. Your job, then, is to…

Developer/publisher Red Candle Games Format PC, PS4, Switch Release 2017 Like therapy, Detention aims to work through repressed traumas, coaxing them to the surface and preparing the patient to confront them. But for Taiwan based developer Red Candle, the trauma is the territory’s own modern history, and the patient its population. Suggesting the full reality is too much to bear from the start, it wraps its subject in a tragic horror story that explores the effects of living in fear and how ordinary individuals must take responsibility for the parts they play. In the process it drags the past back into view, to encourage a future free of its scars. Detention is set in the 1960s during Taiwan’s nationalist White Terror, a 40-year period of martial law in which dissidents…

People ask, ‘Where is the local post office?’, but nobody ever asks, ‘How is the local post office?’ Buildings Have Feelings Too is set to change that: in this city-builder, you must balance the needs of the town with your structures’ own aspirations. “Old stop-motion animation has a big influence,” creative director Benjamin Donoghue says; his team has strived to replicate its magical physicality, presenting buildings as toy-like models you pick up, inspect and rearrange. Blackstaff Games is based in Belfast; its surroundings have been a key influence. “With older buildings needing to adapt to the modern era and increasingly at risk, it didn’t feel much of a jump to imagine buildings having the same anxiety around change we do as people,” Donoghue says. We hope to make their transition…

WEBSITE Virtual Gaming Library bit.ly/vglchannel Describing itself as ‘The first videogame library on YouTube’, the Virtual Gaming Library channel is nothing less than an afternoon-eater. Its owner has put in unfathomable hours of work compiling every single game ever created for various consoles – SNES, PlayStation, Game Gear and Sega Genesis among them – into videos which show off ten seconds of each game. Possibly even more thrilling than the sheer nostalgic headrush of all this is the painstaking admin job: everything is meticulously organised, with clips arranged in timestamped alphabetical order so you can find your favourites quickly. The Game Boy Project is the channel’s latest effort. Spanning all 1049 titles, it’s the perfect thing to pop on in the background at work – and to get you in…

Developer Camouflaj Publisher SIE Format PSVR Origin US Release February 28 We never would have guessed: it turns out flying around in a gleaming metal suit is a wonderful fit for virtual reality. As you beeline past structures sporadically dotted across the ocean surrounding Stark Mansion, your world fuses seamlessly with the fictional plane where personalities such as Captain America, Black Widow or, indeed, Iron Man crop up on television, their benevolent deeds marking them out as warrior, vigilante, hero and – occasionally – comedian. As a result, it’s somewhat deflating to discover that Iron Man VR is terribly basic. Although PS Move controllers are limited in comparison with conventional gamepads, Iron Man VR doesn’t even exploit the few buttons you have at your disposal. The small number of mechanics…

Developer Mediatonic Publisher The Irregular Corporation Format PC, Switch Origin UK, Japan Release 2020 Ed Fear was about to board a flight to Japan when he decided to check his email. Less than 24 hours earlier, he’d submitted a prototype for Murder By Numbers, having spent six weeks assembling what he admits was a very rough proof of concept with assets borrowed from Google Images. He scrolled through his inbox and found his idea had been approved. “It’s the fastest greenlight process I’ve been through in my life,” he says. No wonder. A murder-mystery visual novel with Picross-style puzzles, and music from the Phoenix Wright composer? We’d have given it the go-ahead on the spot. Yet the idea of combining a detective story with nonograms had been gestating for about…

DYING LIGHT 2 Publisher Techland Developer Koch Media Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Origin Poland Release Spring Techland is clearly confident in its zombies-and-parkour RPG sequel, swinging for the big leagues with an ambitious four-year post-launch plan – because seemingly no modern blockbuster worth its salt is ever really done with you. Indeed, it’s already promising 100 hours’ worth of game beyond the 15 to 20 it should take to finish the Chris Avellone-scripted story – which has its own branching choices to encourage replay value. And with refined melee combat, new distraction techniques (UV lights are a more effective space-clearer) and smoother free-running mechanics, it should be a step up in quality as well as quantity. YES, YOUR GRACE Publisher No More Robots Developer Brave At Night Format PC…

Choose one of four controllers for PC, PS4, Switch or Xbox One LED lighting and programmable buttons on Xbox One PS4 mini controller, Retro 8BitDo pad, or Switch Pikachu pad Your special Christmas offer Upgrade to include digital for only £2.50 www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/EDG/xmas192 or call 0344 848 2852 *Terms and conditions: Savings calculated against the full RRP (single issue price x frequency). Gift is only available for new UK subscribers and is subject to availability. Please allow up to 60 days for the delivery of your gift. In the event of stocks being exhausted, we reserve the right to replace with items of similar value. You can write to us or call us to cancel your subscription within 14 days of purchase. Payment in…

Developer Next Level Games Publisher Nintendo Format Switch Release Out now They say horror conforms to the law of diminishing returns, though poor Luigi doesn’t seem to have had the memo. As he takes his first trembling steps onto the 15th floor of a haunted hotel – by which time he’s also explored two basement floors and the mezzanine – you’d think he’d be a little less freaked out by the spooky goings-on around him. In fairness, it’s his cowardice (some might call it pragmatic self preservation) that first keeps him alive when Mario, Peach and three Toads are captured and imprisoned within paintings by a familiar returning villain. Even so, by this stage, you’re wishing he’d pull himself together. But perhaps that’s because, unlike Luigi, we’ve slowly become immune…

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (Paris) Format PC (tested), PS4, Xbox One Release Out now No words, just grunts. A wrecked heli billowing smoke on the horizon amid a thick carpet of tropical plant life, a kilometre or two from the one you just crawled away from, wheezing and bleeding. And a group of mercenaries making idle chit-chat as they stroll, oblivious, towards your position. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint begins on a strong footing. For years it’s been pushed into the margins of the Ubisoft roster by IPs that harness the open-world game design blueprint more accessibly (Assassin’s Creed) or with more of an edge (Far Cry) but in its opening hour, Breakpoint clicks. You wander the vast landscapes of Auroa, a fictional island rendered in such detail that with the right…

Developer/publisher Gwen Frey Format PC (tested), PS4, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One Release Out now As Miles Davis once suggested, there are no wrong notes in jazz – only notes in the wrong places. There are plenty of wrong places in Gwen Frey’s Kine, a dazzling solo project about a trio of jazz-loving machines who dream of becoming serious musicians. Its closest analogue is probably Stephen’s Sausage Roll, only instead of stacking up low-poly bangers, here you’re manoeuvring three awkward robots using their musical limbs. As such, you’re certain to strike a few bum notes. Try to squeeze Euler into a place he doesn’t fit and it sounds like you’ve tripped over a trombonist. You’ll hear a blast of discordant accordion and a bass-drum thud when you’re about to send Roo…

Developer Hidden Layer Games Publisher Chucklefish Format iOS (tested), PC, Switch Release Out now (iOS), 2019 (PC, Switch) Between splash screens and a ‘discretion advised’ warning, Hidden Layer Games suggests its storyled puzzle-platformer is best played with a controller and headphones. We’d add a further recommendation: you might want a drop of the hard stuff to hand, or else a pet within hugging distance. Inmost is frequently beautiful, with some of the boldest pixel art we’ve seen in a long time. Its character sprites could have come from a forgotten Game Boy platformer, while its environments are more coolly contemporary, with flashes of light and faint glimpses of a mostly shrouded sun lending colour to a near-monochromatic palette. Any warmth, however, is extinguished in a story that begins in a…

Developer/publisher Mega Crit Format PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One Release 2019 Almost two years since it entered early access, and ten months on from its full release, you might fairly expect Slay The Spire to have more than three characters. But the playable classes in Mega Crit’s sumptuous dungeon-crawling deck-builder are defined by two things: the number of different directions in which you can take your deck during each run; and how finely all those directions are balanced, both against each other and the various enemies you face during your perilous ascent. This stuff doesn’t happen overnight. As a result, it’s with no little anticipation that we move over to the game’s beta branch on Steam for the debut of its fourth character. The Watcher may not be quite as…