Whenever you're working with an existing IP, there's always the question of how you're going to translate and adapt, right? Because it's not a one-to-one sort of interpretation.
"We want to make the Graham Norton of video games," says Kirsty Rigden, the chief executive of Brighton-based FuturLab, which makes PowerWash Simulator. Aspiring to emulate a talkshow host who has a reputation for being affable rather than for setting pulses racing is perhaps an unusual ambition for a gaming studio.
The former, a story about a traumatized boy defending a city from alien incursions using a biomechanical humanoid mecha in the hopes he will be able to understand himself and earn approval from others, is an apt point of reference for Control Resonant's protagonist Dylan Faden. Dylan, the brother of Federal Bureau of Control's director Jesse Faden, is a powerful parautilitarian who has abilities by way of a connection to an otherworldly entity called Polaris.
A six-week-old Instagram post from Shaun Escayg, featuring a cannon and the word 'Research,' has sparked speculation about a return to the Uncharted series. The post's vibe reminds fans of the Panama segments in Uncharted 4, leading to excitement about a potential new game.
Petit Planet is the studio's take on Animal Crossing, though with a few interesting ideas of its own. The game's most recent test took place all the way back in November, but its next big test isn't far off.
"I thought about two books that I'd read. The first book is by an author called Miyamoto Musashi, it's called The Book of Five Rings, and the other book I was thinking about was called Here Be Dragons, which is a physics book about wormholes, and advanced physics, and extraterrestrial life and so forth."
Timber Rush is about numbers going up in the crudest way imaginable, a clicker game that barely even features clicking, in which you move your woodcutter side to side as increasing numbers of increasingly silly logs fly around the screen.
Games did not suddenly become "worse." Games adapted. Attention got tired, schedules got tighter, and competition for free time turned brutal. A ten-minute gap now has to fight against messages, videos, and endless feeds. In that environment, long-form sessions still exist, but short sessions often win because they respect reality instead of demanding a perfect evening. That shift is visible everywhere, from mobile puzzlers to competitive titles and even casino-style experiences where a quick crore win feeling is part of the appeal.
The best new co-op games are those that do something a bit different, offering more than a single-player experience with another player thoughtlessly tacked on. These multiplayer games account for groups of friends all wanting their own role, with a shared goal in sight and plenty of chaos on the path to getting there.
Trails Beyond the Horizon's new character, Ulrika, is like staring into the abyss of a broken TikTok algorithm, and while my knee-jerk reaction might have been shock and even a little disdain, over the next 100 hours, I grew to find the character's bit surprisingly genuine and, admittedly, hilarious. What first felt like a gimmick grew to become one of my absolute favorite parts of the game, enhancing the already distinct personality of the Trails games.
Spending more than 10 hours a week playing video games may begin to affect young people's eating habits, sleep quality, and body weight, according to new research led by Curtin University and published in Nutrition. The study surveyed 317 students from five universities across Australia. Participants had a median age of 20 years, placing the focus squarely on young adults during a key stage of habit formation.